Mercedes Williamson, 17 Years Old, Yet Another U.S. Trans Woman Murdered in 2015

Mercedes Williamson was 17. She wanted to be a cosmetologist one day.

via Mercedes’ Facebook profile

According to the Sun Herald, Williamson’s friend reported her missing on May 30th and Williamson’s body was found on June 2nd. Josh Vallum, 28, has confessed to the murder and is being held at Georgia County jail on $1 million bond.

Williamson was living with her friend, Jeanie Miller, who told the Sun-Herald that she thought of Williamson as her daughter. In a video interview with the Sun-Herald (WARNING: this video uses Williamson’s birth name), she said, “I just keep wanting her to walk through the door… I’ll never have nobody like her again… She was the most beautiful person.”

According to Miller, Williamson left their trailer around 2 p.m. on May 30th. She was supposed to be picked up by a friend. Her last words to Miller were, “Love ya’ later!” When Williamson never returned, Miller contacted the person who was supposed to pick her up. That person informed Miller that Williamson was dead. The next day, the murderer confessed the crime and where Williamson’s body was buried to his father, Bobby Vallum. Bobby Vallum reported the murder to the police and Williamson’s body was found at 9 a.m. on June 2nd. Josh Vallum reportedly knew that Williamson was a trans woman before he killed her. Hate crime charges have not been brought. Williamson was estranged from her family, who have not commented on the murder publicly.

via the Sun Herald

Williamson is the ninth reported trans woman that we know of has who been murdered this year. The facts of her murder are just now being revealed because of misgendering by local media.

These are the names of the trans women we have lost in 2015. Remember their names and their lives, taken too soon: Papi Edwards, 20, Louisville, KY; Lamia Beard, 30, Norfolk, VA; Ty Underwood, 24, Tyler, TX; Yazmin Vash Payne, 33, Los Angelos, CA; Taja de Jesus, 36, San Francisco, CA; Penny Proud, 21, New Orlean, LA; Kristina Grant Infiniti, 47, Miami, FL; London Kiki Chanel, 21, Philadelphia, PA; Mercedes Williamson, 17, Theodore, Al. There is also Bri Golec, 22, Akron, OH, who may have been a tenth murdered transgender woman (reports from friends are unclear).

This is what an epidemic of violence against trans women looks like.

At the inaugural National Trans Anti-Violence Convening this past March, Lourdes Hunter of the Trans Women of Color Collective stated, “Last year, 12 trans women of color were (reported) brutally murdered in a 6 month time span as our nation’s largest LGBT organizations celebrated the 45th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion now known as Pride. This year, there have been at least 8 (reported) murders of trans women of color and 6 (reported) deaths by suicide of trans youth. Now more than ever, our communities are in need of healing, fellowship, to be held and to come together to address the physical and structural violence we face every day.”

As we celebrate Pride across the U.S., let us honor the names of those who have been murdered. Let’s remember that the gay pride movement was built on the backs and literal bodies of trans women of color. Let’s do more than say their names. Let’s stand collectively and say that this must stop.

Mercedes, we hold you in our hearts.

And Then Miley Cyrus Launched #Instapride To Amplify Trans and Genderqueer Stories

Feature image via Miley’s Instagram

In her latest social media partnership, Miley Cyrus and the Happy Hippie Foundation have teamed up with Instagram to create #Instapride. Throughout the next two weeks, the campaign will share the photos and stories of “transgender and gender expansive people from around the country.”

via The Happy Hippie Foundation

Miley recently came out as various non-specifically-labeled types of queer with regard to her gender and sexuality and launched Happy Hippie, a foundation dedicated to serving homeless and LGBT youth. #Instapride has already garnered a huge response on Instagram — and has already started telling stories, beginning with trans man Leo Sheng. It is pretty amazing to consider that Miley is deliberately putting trans stories and nonbinary stories in front of more than 22 million Instagram followers, not to mention all the other ways she has to reach wide audiences.

Leo wrote on Instagram that sharing his story of transition has been important to him, and he was excited to do so more broadly through #Instapride.

It was run and shot by Miley herself, and showcased stories of trans and gender-fluid Instagrammers from around the country. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been in a room with so much love, pride, and respect for everyone’s journeys. It was such a privilege to be included and I’m so humbled to be a part of something so special and beautiful. I hope that I can inspire those who have the ability to share their own stories to find their own voices.

Miley is an imperfect celebrity advocate with a splotchy history of racism and cultural appropriation that she has never apologized for. However, this campaign, at least in its first hours, seems seriously groundbreaking in scope and wonderfully positive in its approach.

And, in an exclusive with Time (which discredits her membership in the community by calling her an ally and deadnames Caitlyn Jenner and is generally Time-ish, but I digress) it seems like Miley is learning to acknowledge and leverage her privilege.

“In places like Indianapolis, you can tell someone that if they’re trans or gay they can’t use your public bathroom, Cyrus says, referencing the “religious freedom law passed earlier this year that has since been rolled back. “No matter what I’d do, I’d probably be allowed to go in there. Because they’re starfuckers. And these people are real people. I don’t want to be anywhere they can’t be.”

Getting trans and non-binary people’s stories out in the world and in front of a huge audience fits into Happy Hippie’s goal of amplifying youth voices to help eliminate prejudice and keep people alive and happy. And the specific focus on the T in LGBT is rare and necessary in a social campaign like this. Here’s hoping these stories reach the people who need to hear them!

Daily Fix: Supreme Court Rejects North Carolina’s Abortion Law and More News Stories

feature image via motherjones.com

Hey chapstick dreams! Do y’all like cookies? I like cookies.

Pride and Joy

+ About a dozen activists disrupted Boston Pride by sitting at Boylston and Charles streets for 11 minutes — a minute for each trans person who has been murdered this year. The demonstration was held to refocus attention to those most marginalized in the LGBTQ community, honor the lives of trans women of color and raise awareness of the lack of representation and resources to queer people of color in Boston. The group’s specific goals for the Boston Pride officials was to add more trans, low-income, people of color to their board, reroute the parade to go through communities of color and to end partnerships with corporations who are hurting communities of color. They used #wickedpissed on social media to share their message.

via therainbowtimesmass.com

+ Since it’s Pride month a bunch of businesses are capitalizing on it and making commercials and advertisements. Greek yogurt company Chobani isn’t any different. They released a new commercial featuring a lesbian couple in bed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3Z5pAZe0E8

Laws of the Land

+ We’re rounding the corner here folks — by the end of the month, the Supreme Court will make a decision on gay marriage. A group led by anti-gay pastor Rick Scarborough vows to defy any ruling by SCOTUS that recognizes same-sex marriage. They’ve got a whole legion of homophobes — 44,500 signatures to be exact, including our faves Rick Santourm and Mike Huckabee. The group placed a full page ad in the Washington Post last week that said “We ask you not to force us to choose between the state and the Laws of God.”

+ Last week, three different complaints were filed against various establishments that discriminated against transgender people. Zack Ford over at ThinkProgress breaks it down for you and talks about the importance of nondiscrimination protections for LGBT people in housing, education, employment, etc.

+ On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear North Carolina’s case to revive its law requiring people seeking an abortion to listen to an ultrasound or to a doctor describe the fetus to them. The federal appeals court had found that North Carolina’s law violated the First Amendment rights of the doctor and patient.

In other abortion case news, it is yet to be determined if SCOTUS will take up the constitutionality of a Mississippi abortion law that threatens to close the state’s last abortion clinic and Texas’ abortion law that the 5th circuit court of appeals just upheld last week, which will close all but 10 abortion clinics in one of the largest and most populous states in the country.

Welp

+ Rachel Dolezal unapologetically resigned from her position at the the Spokane chapter of the NAACP on Monday. Dolezal, a white person, lied about being black for years and now is the center of a firestorm of criticism as of Friday when the story broke.

+ Chandra Bozelko over at The Guardian writes about her experiences with the emotional, physical and psychological effects of scarce pads and tampons in a women’s prison.

“The reasons for keeping supplies for women in prison limited are not purely financial. Even though keeping inmates clean would seem to be in the prison’s self-interest, prisons control their wards by keeping sanitation just out of reach. Stains on clothes seep into self-esteem and serve as an indelible reminder of one’s powerlessness in prison. Asking for something you need crystallizes the power differential between inmates and guards; the officer can either meet your need or he can refuse you, and there’s little you can do to influence his choice.”

+ Family and friends of a Milwaukee transgender woman who died by suicide in November say the bullying she faced at work and the subsequent inaction contributed to her death. Karis Anne Ross was a teacher at the German Immersion School and her parents say she endured bullying from her coworkers for 10 years while her complaints were ignored by administration. Ross specifically named people in her suicide letter who contributed to her pain. Her friend penned an open letter to the district’s superintendent pointing this out:

“As the spring semester draws to a close and another class prepares for graduation, I wish to call to your attention to an oversight, a failure to act, by Milwaukee Public School administrators, which undoubtedly contributed to the suicide death of one of Milwaukee Public Schools’ best and brightest teachers this past school year. While the blame for her death cannot be fully placed on the Milwaukee Public School District, it is my opinion that if key personnel had responded appropriately, this teacher may have chosen to continue living.”

+ A Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that while college students understand the importance of getting consent before sleeping with someone, they don’t agree on what consent means. College students were asked the meaning of “yes means yes” in regards to specific scenarios including undressing, getting a condom, or nodding. In each of the scenarios, 40 percent of students said the action constituted as consent for sex and 40 percent said they did not.

What We’re Going to Say About Caitlyn Jenner

As many of you know, I spent last week up on a mountain surrounded by 300 fellow queer Autostraddle staff members and readers at A-Camp. When you’re up there, it can seem like the rest of the world stops spinning, like the only things that are happening are happening at camp. I was reminded just how untrue this is about fifteen minutes before I started a workshop, poetically enough, on how to make queer women’s spaces better for trans women, when Morgan turned to me and said, “Well, her name is Caitlyn.”

I talked to Senior Editor Yvonne about how we should cover the news. With limited access to wi-fi and limited time, Yvonne’s neutral three paragraph, one hundred word article on Caitlyn Jenner’s debut was what ended up happening. That’s all we wrote and, in my opinion, that’s all we needed to write. We acknowledged that the cover debuted and made a place for readers to talk about it, but we didn’t act like it was the Transgender Tipping Point or anything.

via Vanity Fair

As you can see, I now need to write a little bit more.

One of my jobs as Trans Editor here at Autostraddle is to curate submissions that are about trans topics. I’m always telling people that I’m looking for more submissions (especially from Black trans women and other TWOC) and that’s very true right now. In just the few days since Jenner made her debut, I’ve received the same number of submissions that I’d received in the entire two months previous. All of these submissions were about Jenner.

One of my other jobs is to watch the internet and see what kinds of things are being written about trans women and see which things we should be on top of or which things we need to respond to. Again, as soon as I got back from camp, everything started coming up Jenner.

For reasons that are pretty obvious (and some that I’m going to go over here) I don’t want to turn Autostraddle into The Caitlyn Jenner show for the next few weeks. My number one priority as the Trans Editor is trans women of color and especially Black trans women. If we keep on writing about Jenner, a wealthy white celebrity, we can’t do that.

I’d much rather publish articles about Laverne Cox, Janet Mock, Miss Major Griffin-Gacy, Lexi Adsit, Ryka Aoki, Reina Gossett, Angelica Ross, Luna Merbruja, and other trans women of color who are making real differences in the lives of trans women. I’d much rather publish first person essays from trans people who want to share their stories. I’d much rather write about the importance of knowing the names and history of trans women of color. I know we need to do better, and we’re always trying to do just that (Hey trans people, especially TWOC, please submit your essays to me and let me know about stories that I should write about. We pay!).

But when the entire country is devoting rapt attention to one famous white trans woman, well, I should probably say something about that, too.

First, I want to get a couple things out of the way. Number one: I’m happy for Jenner. I’m happy that she’s able to be herself and and that she no longer has to hide. I’m happy that cis people are going to learn more about trans people and form some empathy for us. I’m happy for the trans people who will be helped and inspired by Jenner’s coming out. I also completely realize that, largely because cis people have said it is, this is a big moment for trans people. Jenner is the most famous trans person in America. More people than ever can name a trans person, more people than ever have read or heard a trans person tell their story. As soon as she was on the cover of Vanity Fair (or maybe as soon as she talked to Diane Sawyer), Caitlyn Jenner became the face of the transgender community in the United States.

Apart from being a big moment, this is also a pretty strange one. It’s strange that a trans woman who, so far, hasn’t done any work in the trans community has been crowned our queen. It’s strange that a trans woman who is famous, rich, white and conservative, four things that do not describe most trans women, is now the face most cis people think of when they hear the word “transgender.” It’s weird that people are saying that famous, rich, white, conservative and conventionally attractive trans woman is humanizing trans people to a whole new group of people. Why didn’t Janet Mock or Laverne Cox do that for them? Why didn’t CeCe McDonald? Why didn’t Islan Nettles?

via Huffington Post

The fact that it took a rich, white trans woman to humanize us probably doesn’t come as a shock to most trans women of color — or to most women of color, period. When we see our friends and sisters being arrested, raped and murdered on such a regular basis, we already know that our humanity isn’t being recognized (I say “our,” because I am a trans Latina, but I also need to say that my father is white and I often pass as white, so I’m definitely not dehumanized or brutalized in the way that darker-skinned and black trans women are). So to hear that Jenner’s coming out is finally “humanizing” trans people feels like cis people are rubbing salt in wounds that they’ve given us.

While most thinkpieces written by trans people do point out problems with having Jenner as the “face of the trans community,” since the day she first told Diane Sawyer that she was trans, some white trans people have been joining in to say that Jenner’s coming out was the moment we needed to finally humanize us. Many white cis and trans people have been coming together to once again disregard the visible and tireless work of TWOC. This moment that cis people are saying is galvanizing us is actually making many of us feel even worse.

It’s also strange that a lot of pretty respected news organizations are using Jenner’s coming out as an opportunity to release statements of trans misogyny as “opinion pieces.” Or maybe “strange” is the wrong word, because really, we should be used to it by now, but it still feels wrong.

One of the highest profile “opinion” pieces was written by Elinor Burkett for the New York Times, entitled “What Makes a Woman?” The piece trots out many of the same old arguments made by trans-exclusionary feminists for decades, the very same arguments that necessitated the creation of the term “transmisogyny” in the first place, a term that differentiates acts of discrimination, violence and oppression that trans women face from ones that trans men face on the basis that womanhood and femininity are seen as less valuable than maleness and masculinity, and so trans women and transfeminine people are targeted specifically because we are trans and because we are women.

Burkett argues that Jenner’s interpretation of “womanhood,” which Burkett defines with scorn as “a cleavage-boosting corset, sultry poses, thick mascara and the prospect of regular “girls’ nights” of banter about hair and makeup,” puts “women — our brains, our hearts, our bodies, even our moods — into tidy boxes, to reduce us to hoary stereotypes.” She says the idea that a gendered identity is “encoded in us” is “nonsense that was used to repress women for centuries.”

There’s so much going wrong here I don’t really know where to start. Okay, how ’bout here: she misgenders Jenner and other trans people throughout, reinforcing her original statement that trans women aren’t real women. She doesn’t even attempt to be polite about it: she uses Jenner’s birth names, “he” pronouns, and refers to how she just “became” a woman. She uses this singular trans woman, then, to represent all trans women, a group she argues against for the rest of the essay.

She also uses phrases like, “female students who consider themselves men,” showing that she and the editors of the Times had no interest in looking at GLAAD’s guidelines for talking about trans people. I know what the Dallas Morning News says (not just once, but twice), but it’s really not that hard to trust that trans people know who and what we are and to use the correct names and terminology for us.

She claims trans women have no awareness of what it’s like to be a woman, claiming we don’t know what it’s like to be afraid while walking alone at night (despite the fact that trans women who dare to walk anywhere alone are exceptionally vulnerable to harassment, assault and even murder) or how it feels to be paid less than men. To Burkett, we’re just the next “men” in line trying to tell women how to feel and think while reinforcing a damaging gender binary. I guess Jenner has humanized trans people for Burkett, but instead of seeing a human being she can empathize with, she just sees a human that she doesn’t really like. 

I could go on, but I won’t: like I said, her arguments aren’t anything new, nor are the rebuttals to them. But they were presented to the world as new, untested — and progressive — ideas because the world was paying attention to Caitlyn Jenner.

While Jenner has created a brand new level of visibility for trans people, that visibility has definitely come with a price. Because so many more people are interested in reading articles about trans people, so many more people (including many who have very little knowledge about trans issues or people) are willing to very publicly share their opinions, and be heard. In Burkett’s case, rather than question her own misogynistic judgements about the value of a feminine gender presentation or the agency of women who choose those things (because apparently those of us who like makeup and dresses are just buying into a “tidy box”), or question why the media seems only comfortable with very feminine-presenting trans women to begin with, she goes after trans women themselves. As if we aren’t already vulnerable enough. (Caitlyn Jenner, specifically, aside.)

via Time

There have also been some really amazing responses to Jenner’s coming out, many of them, not surprisingly, written by trans women of color. Janet Mock wrote an incredible blog post that not only outlines Jenner’s various privileges but also talks about how trans coverage is changing now and how we should react to that. She talks about how in the one hour after Jenner made her debut, she received more media “requests than I have received from the release of my book, the release of Laverne Cox’s TIME cover, my infamous CNN debate and the consistent deaths of trans women of color — combined.” Again, cis society is deciding that this is the issue that they finally want to pay attention to.

Cox herself also added her own thoughts via a tumblr post that largely talks about Caitlyn’s glamorous photo spread and look. Cox talks about how Jenner’s look isn’t the norm for trans women, Cox’s isn’t even, and that “this is why we need diverse media representations of trans folks to multiply trans narratives in the media and depict our beautiful diversities.” Both women were spot on. Jenner’s debut was an auspicious one, but we need much more representation and we need to be recognized for much more of the things we’re already doing.

Every year on Trans Day of Visibility I see two kinds of essays. One kind, usually from white trans people, talks about the importance of visibility. The other kind, usually from TWOC, talks about how for black and brown trans women, being visible often means being open to violence and discrimination. I see the value and truth in both. Jenner’s extremely visible debut in Vanity Fair is showing this duality perhaps better than any previous mainstream trans story.

So we here at Autostraddle aren’t going to pretend that Jenner coming out is going to improve every trans woman of color’s life or even every white trans woman’s life. We’re not going to act like she’s the hero the trans community has been waiting for; we already have plenty of heroes we need to pay more attention to. At the very same time that people are claiming that Jenner is doing so much good for the trans community, one of those heroes, Monica Roberts — one of the most important trans writers on the internet — is having to ask for donations on her website. If that doesn’t illustrate the huge gap between the experiences of trans women, I don’t know what does.

There has to be a better way to talk about the trans community (whatever that means) after Jenner’s coming out than to frame everything in reference to her. So that’s what we’re going to do. We’re not going to be publishing articles about Jenner every other day or even every week. We’re not going to keep talking about how things are “so different and so much better” now that Jenner is out. We’re going to keep trying to do better and we’re going to keep trying to focus on trans women of color. Caitlyn Jenner might have humanized a very specific type of trans person in the eyes of cis people, but until black trans women have their humanity recognized in the same way, forgive us if we feel like we still have a lot of work to do.

Brouhaha’s Trans Women of Color Storytelling is Healing, is the Revolution

In the Bay Area, queer and trans people of color (QTPOC) have managed to carve out communities, safe spaces, and even arts organizations, despite rapid gentrification that has made San Francisco the most expensive rental market in the country. But how inclusive are the spaces that have been created?

When asked if trans women of color (TWOC) are prioritized or given opportunities to tell their stories and share their experiences, Luna Merbruja simply laughs.

“Uh, no. Trans women of color are not included in radical spaces, period,” she said. “Queer people of color don’t really go to our spaces to hang out with us and their spaces don’t welcome us — so there is a divide. I always call it out. Something will be called a ‘QTPOC event’ but there are no trans women of color. They always want to talk about Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, but then no one who looks like that is ever there or running things.”

Merbruja an international performance artist and the author of Trauma Queen, a memoir documenting the struggles of being a child survivor of rape and abuse. She is also the lead trainer for Peacock Rebellion’s Brouhaha: Trans Women of Color Comedy Storytelling, the first ever comedy show in the nation – and perhaps the world? – with a lineup solely consisting of trans women of color. Part of the 18th Annual Nation Queer Arts Festival, the event will take place at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center on Tuesday, June 9th at 7 pm and 9 pm.

Merbruja says that a lot of radical spaces in the Bay Area are organized around language – acronyms like TWOC – but many don’t ID as trans despite sharing experiences with trans women of color. Also, much of the language used and topics discussed are academic, she says, which leaves out a large portion of the population that didn’t go to college or have access to that language.

Brouhaha, co-hosted by Merbruja and Brouhaha producer Lexi Adsit and featuring performances by Merbruja along with Jade Hambaro, Chella Coleman, Elena Rose, Star Amerasu, Erica Kane, and Janetta Johnson, will enable TWOC to tell their stories however they see fit, while also using comedy as a tool to step away from the narratives we usually hear about trans women of color.

“Usually when people hear our stories it’s about pain and death, but what about sex and dating and desirability? We experience trials and tribulations that are sometimes just like, funny stories that we tell. We never get to be uplifting or joyful or funny,” Merbruja says.

Which is why using comedy as an entry point for social justice isn’t as unusual as some may think. Merbruja asserts that comedy can be harmful and exploitative with trans women often the butt of the joke, but with trans women of color leading the way, Brouhaha is more about curanderismo, or healing of the body.

“I see this as laugh therapy; we’re finding positivity in things that can be painful to all of us. How many of us tell tragic ass stories to our friends and apply comedy as a habit?” Merbruja said. “Things can be disastrous, but they can also be hilarious. Comedy is an art form and within Brouhaha, it’s being used as a tool by trans women of color. I’m so tired of our stories being saturated in death and martyrdom. What’s lacking in the way our stories are told by the media is our joy. This is an entire show where we’re sharing laughter. That’s heart medicine.”

In essence, that’s the exact reason Manish Vaidya started Peacock Rebellion, the San Francisco Bay Area-based QTPOC arts group behind the production of last year’s Brouhaha: QTPOC Stand-Up Comedy and this year’s Brouhaha: Trans Women of Color Comedy Storytelling. Started in 2012, the organization is focused on “healing justice,” which Vaidya says is diametrically opposed to the way the “non-profit industrial complex” operates: “Privatizing and controlling social movements, replicating the behavior of corporations that don’t give a shit about people’s bodies and QTPOC bodies in particular.” As Merbruja has joked: In these environments, self-care becomes one more thing to put on your to-do list.

“My body is hella traumatized,” Vaidya said. “Healing is the revolution; healing is not something that happens after the revolution. Lexi and Luna had a moment when we realized that this show isn’t really about the audience; it’s about the women who are performing. They are artists holding and transforming trauma. I was worried that this was putting trans women of color in a position to perform for cis people, but comedy it’s more like creating an event where cis people have to shut the fuck up and listen to trans women of color for a change.”

Comedy or comedic storytelling, it turns out, is really great for processing trauma – and that’s something Vaidya is very familiar with, having grown up using comedy as both a tool and a coping mechanism.

“I’m Asian. I’m queer. I grew up cracking jokes to survive,” the organization’s founder and artistic director said. “I always wanted to do something with stand-up, but like tender, emo, raunchy snark for social justice, and I wanted it to involve QTPOC. With the training and support and weekly meetings provided by our trainers like Luna, I see Brouhaha as the start of an anti-MFA program for QTPOC who can’t afford debt.”

Vaidya readily admits that Peacock Rebellion is in no way perfect. Adsit, a TransLatina and the producer of Trans Women of Color Comedy Storytelling, previously dropped out of being a workshop participant in last year’s program. The artistic director says he made a lot of mistakes and the organization had to do a lot of work to challenge transmisogyny. The organization has recently undergone a makeover in an attempt to center trans women of color and support them in a real way. Peacock partnered with three organizations serving trans women of color (TGI Justice Project, El/La Para Trans Latinas, and Community United Against Violence, or CUAV) to develop this program; several of their members are in the show, and a portion of ticket sales goes back to their organizations. The producer, trainer, and many members of the production crew are trans women of color. The makeover extends beyond the program as well: Both Peacock’s board chair and the newest member of the organization’s Artistic Core are trans women of color, and more changes are on the way.

Adsit sees this year’s Brouhaha as a real opportunity to disrupt how cis people interact around trans issues, and this was very intentional. The producer says we’re at an interesting time in history and at this specific moment, more broad representations of the trans community are needed.

“There’s a real dichotomy between the trans women that people have become familiar with, women like Janet Mock and Laverne Cox and tragedies like what happened to Islan Nettles. There’s a whole, huge middle ground between the two. Brouhaha will shine a light on trans women of color who are not dead and who haven’t accelerated into mainstream consciousness,” the producer said.

The women participating in the event are different ages and ethnicities. They come from different backgrounds, have had diverse experiences, and according to Adsit, express gender differently. The producer says she and Merbruja have worked hard to cultivate, center, and help raise up the lives and experiences of trans women of color in their daily work. For Merbruja in particular, Brouhaha is important because of the visibility it provides.

“When I came to this project, I outlined my intentions and what I wanted was for trans women of color to be seen and valued,” she says. “I want them to feel like someone is listening and that they are given the space to speak their truth for five minutes without interruption, which doesn’t happen for TWOC often. My hope for the women who participate is that it helps build their confidence; that it makes them feel like they are more than a tragedy waiting to happen; that it’s OK just to tell a funny story.”

16 Ways to Make Queer Women’s Spaces More Trans Women-Friendly

Feature image via Shutterstock

When I first came out just a few years ago and started entering queer women’s spaces, I often found that I wasn’t greeted with the open arms that I expected. While some meetups and organizations and groups didn’t actively say that trans women like me weren’t welcome, they did other things, often microaggressions or acts of casual transmisogyny, that made it clear that they didn’t really care if I felt like I belonged or would want to come back. I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling that way.

Aside from being hurt and angry, this left me feeling very confused. I thought that queer women’s spaces were supposed to be welcoming for a woman like me. After all, I’m a woman, I’m a lesbian, I’m queer. These spaces were supposed to be the one place where I didn’t have to worry about everyone else judging me and saying that I didn’t belong.

As trans people have gained more prominence in culture and trans women, and especially trans women of color have started demanding that our voices are heard, things are getting better. But I still notice things, even in groups and spaces that claim to be completely “trans-friendly.” With all that in mind, I got together with Morgan, KaeLyn and Maddie (who are leading an A-Camp Workshop on this subject with me) to make this list of ways to make sure that queer women’s spaces continue to become even more welcoming and affirming to the trans women who so rightfully belong there.

1. Don’t Talk About Menstruation as if It’s the Ultimate Sign of Womanhood

Making bleeding into the essence of womanhood is a super easy way to make trans women feel like they don’t belong. For example, I hear this kind of thing all the time when people talk about witches, they make statements like, “all women are witches because all women bleed” or “we are witches because our bleeding connects us to the moon.” I’m a witch (and a woman) too. — Mey

Menstruating humans: you can still talk about menstruation, but don’t generalize or assume everyone bleeds once a month. Use I-statements! Even amongst people who do menstruate, it’s not like it’s a singular or uniform experience. By speaking from your personal experience, you help create space for other people to share their related personal experiences, whatever those may be. This creates richer conversations and opens more possibilities for everyone to learn. — Maddie (Yes! Thank you for adding this, Maddie! — Mey)

2. Make Sure You Center TWOC

Also, make sure that you’re centering all of this on TWOC, and usually more specifically, on Black trans women. So much of our history is because of them, and so much of our present oppression is aimed at them. When you’re having a Trans Day of Remembrance event, white trans people and trans men probably shouldn’t be your first choice for speakers. It’s Black and Latina trans women who are murdered, so if you continue to erase them, you’re not helping as much as you think you are. — Mey

3. Even though they’re sometimes cute and funny, think twice before using essentialist slogans like “Ovaries before Brovaries”

I like the sentiment, I’m always here for choosing women over men, but things like this or “uteruses before duderises” can make trans women feel left out. I love you, Leslie Knope, but you can do better. — Mey

I cringe every time someone associates “lesbian” or “queer woman” with “penis-hater” as a stand in for “doesn’t make sexy times with men.” Let’s not assume all women have vaginas and all queer women only have sex with people with vaginas. — KaeLyn

4. Don’t assume only people who are pansexual or queer date trans women

Seriously, I hate it when people say things like, “Pansexuality means attraction to men, women and trans people.” Trans women are women, so if you’re attracted to cis women and trans women, that doesn’t automatically make you something other than a lesbian. — Mey

5. If you say something is “LGBTQ” make sure it’s not just “LGBQ”

People are getting better with this, but I still see online articles talking about the “LGBT” community that don’t mention trans people once. A similar thing that’s equally annoying is when things are labelled “Gay and Lesbian” that include straight trans people, like when Netflix calls Boys Don’t Cry and Gun Hill Road “Gay and Lesbian” movies. — Mey

Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera and others marching. via masstpc.org

6. If you’re talking about queer history, talk about trans history

I can only really talk about the US here, because that’s all I really have a lot of knowledge about, but when you talk about the history of the movement, make sure you talk about how it was started by trans women of color. Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, a Latina trans woman and Black trans woman were two of the first people to fight back, and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is a living trans elder who was also a leader in the riots. — Mey

7. Do your research

Use Google! Before you decide to bother your one trans friend by asking her a million questions about what different terms mean, do your own research! I’ve encountered several people who tell me, in person, that they want to make their group or event trans-friendly, and they’re trying to, but they’re “afraid of saying something offensive” because they don’t know what all the best terms are. If you just google it, there are tons of articles talking about how to talk about and to trans people. — Mey

(Need someplace to start? Here are some Autostraddle articles you might find useful: Please Stop Saying That Trans Women Were “Born Boys”, Getting With Girls Like Us: A Radical Guide to Dating Trans* Women for Cis Women, Remembering Us When We’re Gone, Ignoring Us While We’re Here: Trans Women Deserve More, So You Can Fuck Us; What’s Next? Going Beyond Sex With Trans Women)

7. Be trans-inclusive all the time — don’t make it something you “turn on” once you know a trans person is in a space

If you are in a group of people who all identify as cis, don’t let it be a reason to pretend trans people don’t exist anywhere. You can still practice being trans-inclusive in your language and gently and productively addressing cissexism and cisnormativity. ALSO, cis people, if your family members are down with the Gay, but don’t really understand trans issues, teach them! I’ve found this to be a longer and harder concept for them to understand than my coming out as queer ever was, but it’s made all of us better allies and it’s also strengthened our relationships. — Maddie

Adding on to what Maddie says: when I came out to my folks/etc., my goal wasn’t to try and cover every topic about being trans under the sun. Just what they needed to know then. No conversation had with anyone about anything covers all that needs saying. Take your time. You can’t teach people to have conversations about things if you only speak to them as a one-time monologue. — Morgan

8. Use trans-inclusive language

You can do this in your event descriptions, promotional materials, etc.  — Morgan

9. You can be trans-inclusive without outing people

I’ve had the experience of people showing my modeling pics to people I don’t know and outing me as trans. I’ve also been through a workplace training about trans issues and needed to remind people that you can take this education to your life/clients/etc. without being like, “Oh yes, we have a trans too!” Outing people without their consent is a safety issue. — Morgan

Yes! This reminds me of that scene in Transparent where Maura is going shopping with her daughters and they’re trying to use a public bathroom and a girl in there says something transmisogynistic to Maura, but then Sarah just makes it worse by loudly calling Maura her dad, letting everyone in there know that she’s trans. — Mey

Most especially, cis folks dating trans folks, don’t out your trans partner to gain queer or feminist credibility or trans ally points. Some trans folks are out 100% of the time and might feel comfortable with their partner talking about them as out. With your partner’s 100% explicit permission, it might be OK, but even then, think hard about whether it is important to do and why you are doing it. Don’t make your partner’s gender about you, ever. You can promote trans-inclusivity without outing your partner to gain credibility. – KaeLyn

via Shutterstock

10. When setting up at an event space, slap gender neutral bathroom signs on the male and female bathroom doors

But also, don’t only do this when you have an event with binary-identified trans people. When people tell me that they’ve changed the women’s bathroom into a gender neutral one because I or another trans woman was going to be there, I feel like it sends the message that trans women aren’t real women or don’t fully belong in women’s spaces. — Mey

If they already exist and are accessible, tell people where existing gender neutral and/or single stall restrooms are when your make bathroom announcement. Let everyone know, not just trans people you know are in the room. “Men’s restroom is over there. Women’s restroom is over there. GN and/or single stall restrooms are over there.” — KaeLyn

11. Don’t make things worse when you’re trying to make them better

If you see instances of transphobia, cissexism/centrism/normativity/etc., do not call it out in abusive or confrontational ways (which don’t do any good), do not create a judgment space, but use this as an opportunity for open and genuine discourse. — Morgan

This especially goes for cis people calling out other cis people. Don’t capitalize on instances of transphobia/misogyny cissexism/centrism/normativity as an opportunity to win social justice warrior points. You probably needed to learn whatever this person needs to learn at some point, so meet them where they’re at and help them learn what they need to know. Have a discussion. — Maddie

It is not up to trans people to educate cis people, but trans people are often expected to answer cis people’s very Google-able questions. Cis allies are in a position of systemic power and can use that cis privilege for good by educating other cis people (and especially explaining why it’s not cool to keep asking trans people invasive and offensive questions and maybe show them how Google works). — KaeLyn

I was doing the activism thing for awhile, inviting all the questions, answering all the questions. I was approaching burnout. Then someone told me something that I had never heard before, never knew was allowed: “Morgan, you have the right not to educate someone. You have the right to not fight the fight.” I got so fixated on making things better for others that I made it worse for me. Know your limits, and if you don’t, keep an eye out for them. — Morgan

12. Gender inclusiveness is not a one-off event and then it’s all worked out; it’s something you need to continue to plan new topics for as time goes on

See cuz the program obvi isn’t just for trans people to feel safer, it’s for you to interact with the world in a more knowledgeable way. And maybe help cis people come to terms with gender feelings they didn’t realize they had. — Morgan

via look2remember.com

13. All feminist concerns are transgender concerns, period

…and if your feminism doesn’t have space for transgender issues, ask yourself why and think about how you can make your feminism trans-inclusive. — Maddie

…and trans women’s experiences are women’s experiences, period, and are part of feminist experience and discourse. — KaeLyn

14. Don’t just wait and hope trans people will come to you

Reach out to trans people/organizations in your area to facilitate discussions and further the goals of both groups/organizations by facilitating dialogue and unity. Go to trans people rather than waiting for them to show up on your doorstep. — Morgan

Groups often lament that they “need more _____” at the table. Black people, nonblack POC, young people, trans people, directly affected people, etc. Well, great. You’ve identified the empty seats. But don’t expect trans people to come to your table that was built for and by cis people. You have to engage trans people respectfully and create a new trans-inclusive table together. — KaeLyn

15. Support creating space for trans-centered spaces and discussions in women’s space and then step back and let those spaces center on trans women

Taking up all the air in trans spaces with your cis voice is a really disruptive and disrespectful thing to do, even if you are invited to be there. Especially if you are invited to be there. Don’t make a trans space about your cis voice. Sit back and listen and appreciate that you were trusted to be present. If you are going to insert your voice into a trans conversation and want to do so respectfully, use it to amplify the voices of trans people. For example, if you are joining a #translivesmatter tweet-up, retweet trans people and tweet out trans leaders, authors, activists. Again, listen and step back and keep the conversation centered on trans people and trans voices. – KaeLyn

16. Remember that trans people and trans politics contain multitudes

One trans person can’t speak for all trans people, and there are different trans politics that can contradict each other. This is another reason why it’s important to look at trans and gender-inclusivity as an ongoing process rather than a one-time checklist: it’s part of a living and growing discourse about how to create a world where trans liberation and gender self-determination can exist, intersecting with and incorporating racial, economic and disability justice. — Morgan

The list our workshop came up with at A-Camp 2015.

We also came up with this list as a group at A-Camp. Some of them are already covered here on this list, but here they are:

• Don’t make assumptions based on presentation or appearance. Ask pronouns/names (not a preference). De-emphasize the importance of appearance.
• Don’t whisper behind backs
• Cis discomfort is not trans people’s issue
• Don’t assume it’s your business
• Speak up against microaggressions, especially in spaces where it’s all cis people. Own your mistakes, apologize and be open to criticism.
• Call out in productive, non-aggressive ways. We all have room to grow, but also there’s room for trans people to be angry and humor can be a good tool if used appropriately.
• It’s on cis people to meet other cis people where they are
• Speak up, not over
• Don’t share people’s legal names
• Encourage but don’t tokenize leadership of trans women in queer spaces. One trans woman on a board doesn’t equal inclusivity.
• Speak from your own experience and don’t assume a singular trans experience
• Bring resources to spaces (Frequently Argued Bullshit)
• Binary trans people and non-binary trans people have different needs. Using “cis and trans” to define different groups can be othering.
• Remember the difference between gender and sexual orientation.
• If you say LGBT do you mean all those letters? Make sure you say what you mean.
• Read a fucking book! Do your research. Do you know google?
• Don’t expect trans people to know everything
• Don’t go to trans exclusionary events
• Feminist and queer issues are trans issues.
• INTERSECTIONALITY
• Understand intersex issues as connected but distinct
• Be specific about inclusion
• Resources
  • Trans Bodies/Trans Selves
  • Trans tag on Autostraddle
  • Whipping Girl and Excluded by Julia Serano
  • Redefining Realness by Janet Mock
  • Becoming a Visible Man by Jamison Green and Letters for My Brothers

Of course this list is incomplete; we’re just a few people with a few ideas, and we don’t cover every experience or type of person, so you can be sure we’ve missed some things. If you have other ideas, please add them in the comments.

Caitlyn Jenner’s Vanity Fair Cover Is Very Vanity Fair

Caitlyn Jenner, Olympic gold medalist and reality TV star, made her debut on the cover of Vanity Fair after coming out as a trans woman in her two-hour interview special with Diane Sawyer in April. She talked about how she struggled with her gender identity and coming out for years all while being in the public eye.

In the 22-page cover feature story, Jenner speaks with Buzz Bissinger about her life after her TV interview and her upcoming TV series. Jenner posed for photographer Annie Leibovitz during her photo shoot in her home.

Read tidbits of the interview on Vanity Fair or wait till it hits newsstands on June 9.

via Vanity Fair

Why You Need to Go to Queer Rebels Fest in San Francisco This Weekend

Last year, San Francisco’s Mission District saw the doors of Esta Noche closed for good. The 33 year old queer Latino bar’s closure was dismissed by sites like Eater and the San Francisco Weekly as little more than a drag-show-offering-dive where by mid-afternoon, you could catch “glimpses of dudes blowing other dudes behind open doors.” To the largely queer and trans Latino patrons who populated the bar, it was decidedly more. Through interviews in Juliana Delgado Lopera’s book Cuéntamelo: Oral Histories of LGBT Latino Immigrants, we learn that Esta Noche enabled queer and trans immigrants to find community; it was a place where queer and trans Latinxs could find employment; the bar provided a creative outlet for performers, one of the only in the once predominantly-Latino Mission District to have all-Latinx drag shows.

San Francisco also recently saw the closure of The Lexington Club, the city’s only remaining lesbian bar.  When writing of the club’s closure, Lila Thirkield, the Lexington’s owner, wrote about how painful it is to lose queer spaces and much like Esta Noche, it was a matter of no longer being able to afford rent in a rapidly-changing neighborhood.

What we’re really talking about here is violent displacement, also known as gentrification. According to KB Boyce and Celeste Chan, the closure of spaces like Esta Noche and The Lexington Club signify a new stage of gentrification – the loss of public gather spaces for queers and queer and trans people of color.

“With queer and trans people of color (QTPOC), there’s such a history of being pushed out, a sense that we have no place to publicly belong. Even though some can gather privately, there are a lot of QTPOC who are working-class, poor, or homeless, who are pushed from The Piers in NYC or the streets of San Francisco. There is no place to be. We have a presence that is both invisible and policed,” Boyce said.

Boyce and Chan are the people behind Queer Rebels Productions, formed in 2008 with the goal of building artistic spaces for queer and trans artists of color. Since the beginning, the group has wanted to do a multi-ethnic QTPOC festival, like the one they’re holding on May 29 and 30. QUEER REBELS FEST! is the couple’s attempt to move beyond the mourning the QTPOC community so often must do in the face of police brutality and the murders of Black Trans women, women of color, Black women, and Black men. In short, QUEER REBELS FEST! is a reminder of those who are still in San Francisco, holding onto queer and trans people of color artistic spaces. The festival will feature two nights of proactive new performances from queer and trans artists of color, including Ryka Aoki, Wizard Apprentice, South Central-born drag queen Persia, and Elena Rose, among many others.

South Central-born drag queen Persia

Queer Rebels first event emerged from Boyce’s performances as TuffNStuff, a cross-dressing Blues musician. After receiving a $500 Queer Cultural Center grant, the group organized/curated Queer Rebels of the Harlem Renaissance for the National Queer Arts Festival. The community really showed up for the event, so Boyce and Chan decided to keep going. The goal now is to be part of a larger QTPOC movement, with Queer Rebels challenging audiences to think about who is honoring queer/trans ancestors and who has artistic freedom, voice, and legacy.

“There aren’t many physical spaces dedicated 24-7 to queer and trans artists of color,” Boyce said. “We exist in the overlap – between queer spaces and people of color spaces. And now all of these spaces are rapidly disappearing. We’re trying to hold it down for queer/trans people of color in San Francisco, be part of a larger movement for QTPOC arts, and also assert our presence is a city that is driving POC out and becoming whiter and wealthier.”

Besides being life-giving, queer and trans art keeps those histories alive. Chan says that so many of the people who are getting pushed out of San Francisco are the ones who helped build the city. Events like Queer Rebels Fest is a way of asserting QTPOC existence, the Queer Rebels co-founder says.

“We’re here on our own terms; we’re not waiting around for the colonial gaze to acknowledge us. In so many spaces, we are pushed out, marginalized – but actually, really, we have a lot of collective power.”

And it’s true: When queer and trans people of color get pushed out of San Francisco, the city also loses.

“Can we be more clear about what makes San Francisco special? It’s that mix of Esta Noche queens, the Hot Boxx girls at Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, Chinese immigrant seniors waiting at the food bank, Folsom Street Fair furries, and guys in assless chaps. It’s the Tamale lady, the now defunct Bay Area Women of Color BDSM Project; it is Rhodessa Jones/Idris Ackamoor making art in the city for 30 years, Mission artists René Yañez and Yolanda Lopez, who were evicted from their home of 35 years, and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. It is the artists, artists, and more artists who make this place special,” Boyce said. “San Francisco has been a hub of communities of color and counterculture. Don’t move to San Francisco, displace people, and then complain about all the homeless people whose displacement you may have perpetuated.”

The sentiment was echoed by Queer Rebels Fest performer Persia (with Daddies Plastik) in an unlikely hit from last summer called “Google Google Apps Apps,” a heavy, yet danceable song about white tech workers who are gentrifying the Bay Area and the Mission, in particular.

Persia in the Google Google Apps Apps

What the city doesn’t need, Chan says, is more Google buses.

“What it does need is to make sure that people of color, working-class, queers, trans people, artists, immigrants/refugees, writers, and freaks can still afford to live and work and play here,” Chan says. “It needs to remain a kaleidoscope of culture and history, freaky art, and lefty politics. As Queer Rebels, we’re committed to being here and staying here – and promoting, supporting, and nurturing new work by queer and trans artists of color. Gentrification and economic violence lead to erasure, so we need community now more than ever. We are not leaving. We are fighting for the heart of the city.”

WHAT: Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center and Queer Cultural Center co-present QUEER REBELS FEST 2015

WHEN: May 29-30, 2015. Doors 7 p.m., Show at 7:30 p.m. $12-25

WHERE: African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton Street, San Francisco

MORE INFO: WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/QRPRODUCTIONS

Graduation to Womanhood: Navigating Trans Identity at a Southern College

The South has a knack for making you feel othered if you’re even the slightest bit different. If you’re not white, the right kind of Christian, conservative, straight, cisgender — you’ll be made a target. I learned all of this long before I reached the end of my senior year of high school, which is why I wasn’t particularly thrilled to attend my alma mater, the University of Georgia. In fact, I wasn’t thrilled at all to know that I was essentially signing a contract to stay in the South for at least four more years. I’d spent all my life in Georgia and I was itching to be somewhere where the air was less thick with conservatism and a history (and current status) of intolerance.

But I’m adaptable. I quickly learned that college is a transformative process regardless of location. It’s all about finding yourself, discovering your hopes and aspirations and reaching the deeper areas of your mind. Some people come out of the experience with a degree, others with incredible stories, and others simply with a better understanding of their body’s tolerance for alcohol. But some, like me, left with a newfound understanding and sense of purpose; I matriculated as a timid, confused boy and departed as a woman standing in her truth.

College was like most of my life — full of dichotomies. My experiences (in all their eclectic glory) were yearning to come together like a woven tapestry, creating an intricate semblance of understanding and identity. I needed a stark contrast to the double life I lived throughout high school, playing the well-mannered and virtuous “straight” boy at home and the flamboyant, queer prince (think Jack, from Will & Grace) at school.

Due to lack of education and awareness of transgender issues and internalized mislabeling from peers, I came out as gay at 14. I knew this was the right choice despite a lack of community and anticipated support from parents that were Southern, black and Catholic. Don’t get me wrong, they loved me — but like most parents they weren’t completely equipped to handle having a queer child. But I had no choice but to be authentically me because queerness (and my high femininity) adorned me like a badge. I was mocked and ridiculed for it long before I even knew what “it” was — or at least what I thought it was.

DISCOVERING MY IDENTITY

“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.”
― Audre Lorde

Once I made it to UGA, I wasn’t met by some caravan of queers or any reassurance of my journey. It took time to wade through the campus’ hegemonic culture that I was, in many ways, the complete antithesis of. I was a budding queer, black, feminist, trans woman, so it was powerful for me to embrace myself in an atmosphere that fostered and encouraged adherence to a white, cisheteronormative ideal. Greek life and southern football culture consumed the campus’ resources and energy, and it was always apparent that Confederate, quasi-Antebellum ideals marked the mandates, words and ideologies of the powers-at-be. They weren’t going to give me a portrait with my face on it; I was going to have to bogart my way into the frame.

I struggled early on. Being both black and queer, I had to make a choice on whether I’d delve into the “black” scene (which, in hindsight, lacked a racial justice flair, given the pre-Ferguson era) or, for once, gain entry into a group of queer people on similar journeys of figuring themselves out. The thing was — I knew there was no way in hell that I’d retreat into the closet and relive my early high school days, so I really ended up having no choice.

You’d think joining the campus LGBTQ group was an immediate fit. However, I initially eschewed the small pocket of the LGBTQ community that I encountered — finding it clique-ish and insular. Despite my desire to fully embrace myself, I found it difficult to juggle the blazing desire to be out and visible with a chance to — for once — define myself socially on my own terms (I.e. be known as more than the gay kid.) But maybe I could do both?

I quickly learned that self-discovery is a universal calling. Queer millennials are setting the tone and holding society accountable in a way generations before never had the opportunity to. We are emitting a burning necessity and urgency about our journeys. And there is a unique synergy I found in the experiences of gender nonconforming individuals, queer people, women and people of color. We all play a role in shaping each other. Whether by choice or out of desperation, I had a knack for compartmentalizing my identities and these groups helped me resist it.

In time, I uncovered a community of mentors, students and other groups that embraced who I was becoming and provided opportunities for me to define just what that was. But soon, I found that something was missing. I felt comfortable standing on the front lines as a gay kid, but my questions about my gender identity started to consume me — almost organically. So I found an outlet.

Drag performance became one of those playgrounds of resistance for me, as well as a playground for my gender identity (by literally placing it center stage). I initially struggled with embracing my femininity out of fear that it would brand me as invaluable and undesirable, but once I befriended others who used drag as a means to express themselves, I wanted to do the same. Channeling Rihanna’s edgy fierceness or Beyoncé’s demure, modern sexuality proved just what I needed, but it wasn’t the sole force that would bolster my gender experience.

From there I was able to begin the process of discarding my internalized femmephobia in the midst of academia. I was also fortunate to come into my womanhood in the midst of academia. Women’s studies classes equipped me with mantras and manifestos to combat that hate I internalized from the world about my queerness, femininity, blackness and womanhood. Discovering the nuance of race, gender, sex and sexuality allowed me to articulate who I was on the identity map (if that even exists). I found the terminology to understand how all of these systems are connected and what it means when they coincide. I also gained the ability to look beyond my identities and respect others — an invaluable lesson that continues to elude so many, including other queer folk and self-proclaimed feminists.

Just as I was starting to hone in on the validity of my existence, my father died. It was sudden; no lingering bouts with cancer or degenerative diseases. No, he had a stroke at 57 and it rocked my world and my family’s. Seeing my mother exclaim, “I never thought it would be this way,” will forever be etched in my memory.

It changed everything. Others contemplated the idea of me taking some time of school with a hardship withdrawal and my family worried about me, by far being the youngest child at 19, being affected by the situation. But I forged through the semester, delving into my studies and keeping to myself. I quit drag, worried about besmirching my father’s legacy. It was all too much and I just didn’t want to deal with grieving and feeling guilty. So I tucked my gender issues under my cerebellum and trudged forward.

OWNING MY IDENTITY

“It is revolutionary for any trans person to be seen and visible in a world that tells us we should not exist.” – Laverne Cox

Losing my father became a pivotal turning point in my approach to life and my search for self-definition. His death, though immensely painful, also represented a death of expectations. In many ways he represented the last major shackle on my gender identity. My father loved me, no doubt. He admired my intellect, the way I thought about the world — and ironically — my stubborn penchant for being myself. He didn’t love the fact that I was gay nor do I imagine he would have instantly welcomed the fact that I was really trans. Fully owning my queerness and femininity would have been incredibly difficult to do while he was living.

After the dark tinge that painted my outlook slowly dissolved and I was able to experience any ounce of optimism, my gender thoughts came back. This time I wouldn’t stop piecing myself together. So I started to embrace my love for makeup — even out of drag — and I performed more than I ever had before. I dyed my hair bright red, pierced my ears — both things my parents wouldn’t have been a fan of — and I held my head high. I honed in on that self-expression that so many had tried to stamp out of me. I learned that we are told that yearning for the validation of others is a fruitless, misguided cause (and it usually is) — but when others see you for who you truly are and respect it, you are forever changed.

My friends and community embraced these parts of me that I was always told were undesirable through tips at my shows or words of encouragement. I’d always had the family I needed, but I finally found the village would raise me up to the next level.

With such empowered feelings, I dove head first into social activism and aligned myself with the outreach and resource efforts of my college’s LGBTQ Resource Center and LGBTQ group. It was there that I learned that in spite of my identities I could and should be outspoken and dedicated to liberating others while simultaneously liberating myself.

I worked with other students, faculty and organizations who found it necessary to educate the masses through discussion panels, instill pride and solidarity through events and meetings, as well as provide space for others. Through these coalitions I found that it’s important to build collective and personal power with empathy always at the helm.

At one point as a student leader, I discussed expanding the non-discrimination policy directly to the then President at an open forum and he equated sexual orientation with gender identity. Even after the affirmative from the Student Government Association and other student leaders, the President let the resolution sit on his desk for ever. (The policy was finally changed after I and many of my peers who initially worked on the effort had graduated.)

Even though widespread changes on campus happened gradually, my own personal growth did not. I started experimenting more deeply with my identity — reading up on gender variance and ultimately, deciding I must be genderqueer. Trans just seemed to extreme at the time (not knowing that it fell under that umbrella anyway.) For me it was a stepping stone and a means to shield myself for what I anticipated to be a backlash against my fully-realized womanhood. I remember chanting, “I just don’t want to be trans,” because I was fearful of self-definition and all of its consequences.

Living with certainty, integrity and power set a solid foundation for my social transition. It reassured others when I operated with deliberate certainty. I learned that often the marginalized have to combat the hijacking and dismissal of their narratives and it takes well-calculated articulation from the self to do that.

When I fully realized that living in fear of myself and the world was incompatible with happiness and a worthwhile livelihood is when I decided to confront the world with my full self. I ran through the idea of coming out for a few months, but in time I decided authenticity was the antidote. The week just before National Coming Out Day 2012, I decided to use that as my opportunity to be brazen about myself and my identity. I composed a note that I shared on Facebook with the hope that my declaration would accurately depict my historically misconceived identity.

Almost immediately I experienced overwhelming love and support from people I’d met at many different points of my past. It invigorated me and gave me the freedom and validation to sprint towards my transition goals fervently and unabashedly. I was able to marry my trans identity with the rest of my life. It’s as if I had just discovered a new color and now had this entirely new dimension to my life. I was able to paint a holistic portrait of what I wanted the rest of my life to look like. Our lives — in their entirety — are masterpieces and every milestone or instance of self-discovery infiltrates a blank space on the canvas. Using this perspective, I was able to work towards a life where embracing my identity was a necessity.

But deciding to transition was no easy feat. I had to deal with so many questions from within and from the people around me. Not only was I reassuring myself that I was making the right decision, but I had to do the same with my mother, sister and brother. Overwhelmingly, my mother and sister were positive about it, but my brother had his own issues with it. There’s something about a family member of the same assigned gender transitioning that tends to affect people more deeply. Often people make trans people’s decisions about themselves, when really they have much less to do with others than with the person.

Then there was getting through therapy so that I could gain permission to be myself and obtain hormones. The idea that someone acts as a gatekeeper for your identity and future is infuriating, but those are the hoops we must go through at this stage. Though I wasn’t decades into my life like many of my trans elders — I had lived at least two decades in a perceived gender. So there were many elements of my past I did have to “tie up.” I was worried about my mother in my hometown of Augusta and how she would juggle church friends, neighbors and community members who knew me before.

There was also the whole issue of my name change and getting records changed in the Student Records office so my transcript would reflect my true identity and preparing for jobs while still feeling so much social anxiety and awkwardness. Then there was the battle of having that new name used in classes. I felt like some sort of alien — some genderless creature that people couldn’t quite make out. Being called a man out in public also didn’t help. I figured at that point that I’d always be a target on some level and found that asserting your true identity is costly — financially, emotionally, and psychologically.

USING MY IDENTITY TO INSPIRE

“As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” – Marianne Williamson

My final semester involved a great deal of anxiety about what my post-collegiate life would be like. I was worried about the loss of most of my access to this built-in community. I wondered how I was going to solely motivate myself to do better and be better. I was also worried about what navigating life outside of my bubble was going to be like in “the real world.”

It proved difficult at points, especially just out of college when I started working in an environment where being stealth was a necessity for survival. However, I knew I was strong and that even if things became difficult I had a history of finding what I needed, whether it was community or resources. I had developed the audacity to do more than just exist, but to be happy while I was doing it.

Looking back I’m astonished at my sheer will to endure. In many ways I had a great deal of support and access, but finding myself had its difficulty like everything else. In many ways, my transition has served as a litmus test for others to discover and experiment with their identities. As demanding and frightening as it is at points, I’ve always believed that authenticity in the self begets authenticity in others. Having possibility models is important because they often provide a mirror for ourselves and a vision of what life’s possibilities are when we embrace ourselves.

Many of my possibility models have existed from afar. People like Janet Mock, Laverne Cox and people from my more immediate community. Embracing that I’ve been that and continue to be that for others has taken work, but it has helped me realize my power. I always knew I had so much to say and to stand for, but I just wasn’t equipped to do just that.

My goal is to continue the work of being steadfast and resolute in who I am. I want to inspire. I want to speak. I want to liberate myself and others.

ABC Family Brings the Real-Life “Transparent” with “Becoming Us” (And That’s Not a Great Thing)

When I first wrote about this show in my preview of upcoming shows featuring trans women, I said that to me, it seemed like it might be a reality show version of Jill Soloway’s hit Amazon show Transparent. I also said I hoped that, unlike Maura’s family in that show, the transgender parent in Becoming Us‘s family wouldn’t be filled with horrible people. While I wouldn’t go that far, after watching the first two episodes I was definitely expecting Carly’s family and the other people in the show to be much more supportive of her and to be better examples of how to act when you have a trans family member than they were. After all, why would you agree to star in a reality show unless you thought it was going to paint a good picture of you? Instead, I found myself crying halfway through the first episode — not because the show was touching my heart, but because I couldn’t believe how Carly was being talked about by her family.

ABC Family’s “Becoming Us” stars Suzy, Ben and Carly. (ABC Family/Jean Whiteside)

While Becoming Us is ostensibly among the new wave of TV shows about trans woman, it’s really about a 16-year-old boy named Ben from Evanston, Illinois. Ben has a group of friends, a girlfriend who also has a transgender parent, an older sister, a mom named Suzy and another parent named Carly. Carly has recently come out as transgender and the show is mostly about how Ben and his friends and family are dealing with her transition. It’s about how hard it is when your parent is trans and how you have to learn to deal with that difficulty and accept that trans parent. So, right from the start, this is clearly a show for cis people, and not for trans people. And that’s fine. I do think that there’s some real value in shows for cis people that are about trans characters. It’s an easy way for them to learn some things and test out their reaction to trans people without having to actually react to a real-life trans woman and possibly ruin her day.

At the beginning of the show we’re introduced to Ben, who right away becomes the sympathetic center of the show. We’re going on his journey, we know more of his emotions and feelings than anyone else’s, we’re supposed to be able to relate to him. This is a problem. Ben isn’t exactly taking his parent’s transition well. He’s clearly confused, clearly frustrated and clearly uncomfortable. There’s a scene where Ben is hanging out with his friends and they start talking about trans people and pronouns. They look up a list of gender-neutral pronouns and start listing them off and laughing at them. Ben goes on to say that it’s all so confusing and he’s just going to call Carly “Carly” even though she clearly just uses “she/her” pronouns. This is when I started crying. It wasn’t the only time I would be shocked at how Carly was talked about by her family.

Ben’s girlfriend Danielle and her dad. (ABC Family/Jean Whiteside)

There was another scene, this time in the second episode, where Ben was talking to his girlfriend Danielle about his struggling relationship with Carly. She asks if Carly wants Ben to call her Mom or Dad or what. Ben replies by saying that Carly’s asked him to call her Mom, but he refuses to, and that if he can’t call her Dad, than he’s gonna call her nothing at all. This feeling is later reinforced when Ben’s talking to his Mom and she talks about “if you reach out to Carly and you want to continue your dad-son relationship, because I ain’t gonna say mom-son relationship. Ever!” This was hard for me to watch. I can’t even imagine how crushed I would have been if my parents told me that they refused to ever call me their daughter and that if they couldn’t call me their son, they wouldn’t call me anything. I know that this is a change for the cis people in this show, and I know that they’re learning, but they seem to have so little compassion for Carly. And the way the show is set up, it’s like we’re supposed to be on their side.

There were a lot of scenes like this, a lot of times when Ben would talk about how hard Carly’s transition is on him, how difficult this is to process and how much this is messing up his life. All of these feelings are affirmed by his friends and his mom. Danielle shares some of his same feelings, her dad, who is transgender, but still uses “he/him,” the name Daniel and Dad, but seems to be much more willing to learn and grow than Ben. It was very strange watching the people in this show, which seems to be advertised as being good for the trans community, being so actively resistant to embracing its main trans character.

Sutton and Carly bonding. (ABC Family/Lou Rocco)

There were a few good moments, though. One of my favorites was when Carly was talking to the camera and she said, “you know, I always said, you’re not losing me at all, I’m not going anywhere. Instead, you’re gonna get more of me than you ever got before.” When the narrative around trans women coming out is so often that people are losing a father or son or brother, it’s nice to hear someone word it this way.

Another really touching scene was between Danielle and her dad, who still uses “he/him” pronouns, and goes by Dad and Daniel. They were talking about how unfair it is that Daniel doesn’t feel safe going outside presenting as a woman and you could tell that Danielle just wanted her dad to be able to be himself and be happy. Watching Carly take Daniel to go bra shopping was also really great; it was the first time that Daniel seemed genuinely happy in the episode. My favorite character (out of the cis people, at least), was Sutton, Ben’s older sister who’s getting married soon. Although she’s not Carly’s daughter, there was a really sweet scene where she and Carly went wedding-registry shopping, bonded and had a great time, something I could never see Ben or Suzy doing. Another Sutton highlight was when she and her friend looked up a video of a trans woman getting bottom surgery and she not only corrected her friend when she misgendered the trans woman, but she also was pretty much the only person not “othering” trans women.

This isn’t the review of this episode that I wanted to write. While I didn’t think I would fall in love with this show, I thought it would be a great resource and a good example of how to act for people who have a family member or friend who comes out as trans. I thought that it would show a real-life example of how a family reacts to the news that the person they thought was the father is really another mother and how they show that person love, support and affirmation. Instead, I got a show about how hard it is for cis people to deal with the fact that someone they love is trans.

Ben and Carly. (ABC Family/Jean Whiteside)

I realize that the narrative that Becoming Us shows is pretty typical. A big number of trans people who come out have strained relationships with their families, especially at first. But this isn’t the only narrative, and it’s far from the ideal one. People who have a family member who comes out as trans are going to watch this show, and they’re going to see the way Ben and his mother and his friends talk about Carly and since no one (for the most part) challenges or corrects them, they’re going to think that this is the proper way to react. They’re going to think that if they misgender or disrespect their transgender loved one, it’s not just okay, it’s expected.

I don’t like how much this show reminded me of Transparent. On that fictional show, all of Maura’s children are selfish, immature and kind of just horrible people, so when they misgender Maura or laugh about trans people or do other things that I could see Ben, Suzy and some of the others do on Becoming Us, we know that we shouldn’t look to them as role models. We know that we shouldn’t follow their example. That’s not so clear on this show. These are real people, and Ben is definitely the viewer’s entry point into this world; the show is encouraging us to relate to him.

Becoming Us positions itself as being pro-transgender. It seems very much like the producers and the people who star in it feel like they’re being good allies and they’re doing a public service. Really, I’m afraid that it’s giving people a bad example of how to react when one of your loved ones come out. The moral of the first two episodes seems to be “Trans people are difficult and they cause a lot of stress and drama in their cis loved one’s lives. So it’s okay if you don’t react very well, it’s okay if you’re not supportive right away and it’s okay if you make it all about you,” which is not a message that I want to hear or have broadcast on national television.

I also know that these are real people, and that real people make mistakes and more importantly, that real people can grow and learn from their mistakes. So I do hope that we’ll see some of that growth on this show. The end of the second episode actually did indicate some of this growth from Ben, so I do think we might see more. If it does, I think that this show has the potential to help trans people by giving their family and friends a guide on how to be supportive, something which a lot of friends and family of trans people often look for when someone comes out as trans. That will only happen if people watch the whole show, though (and if it turns into the show that I hope it does). If you were to watch just these first two episodes, you’d get the same ideas that I did, and those ideas aren’t so great for trans women.

Becoming Us, which is produced by Ryan Seacrest, premieres on ABC Family on Monday, June 8th at 9 PM ET/PT

On Learning to Love My Body: Because Summer Is For Fat Girls, Too

Here in Michigan, we often joke that we really only have two seasons: cold and hot. It’s actually more true than I will usually admit. Within just the last few days, things here in the mitten have finally made their transition from “risking frostbite” to “risking sunburn,” and I’ve been incredibly excited to finally pack away my thick sweaters and thermal tops and break out the summer wear. After spending a day out running errands in shorts and a tank top, I was struck at just how absurd the very idea of going outside dressed like that would have felt for me just a couple of years ago. The obvious broadness of my shoulders, presence of arm chub, and bit of thigh cellulite would have had me covering up instead of basking in the warm spring sun. It made me appreciate just how far I’ve come in learning to love the body I have.

As a fat transsexual woman, the world isn’t exactly lining up to tell that I’m beautiful. On the rare occasion that beautiful trans people are celebrated, it universally seems to be those who fit within standard cisnormative beauty standards, which include the preference for thinness. In growing “diverse”-bodies-in-advertising movement, like Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty,” we’re starting to occasionally see women of larger sizes. But even then, those women always seem to be selected for a certain socially-acceptance kind of shape — wide hips, large breasts, full bottoms, and narrow waists. I have precisely zero of those traits. My hips look narrow on my non-petite frame, my breasts are small, and my middle is round and squishy. Yeah okay, I’ve got kind of a big ass, but even that is dimpled and square. And yet, most days I can look in the mirror and love what I see, and that’s a pretty huge step forward from where I was just a couple of years ago.

One of the most deeply damaging parts of dysphoria for me was the profound way it warped how I saw my body. Over the course of my adult life before I decided to transition, my weight varied by nearly 150 pounds. I felt the exact same way at the low end of that range as I did at the high end — ugly. I cringed when I looked in mirror; I felt physically ill from my own image. Despite being aware that I’m not cis since my early adult life, I never really connected that sickened, disgusted feeling with the concept of dysphoria. I just thought I was a really ugly person. Given that I felt exactly the same way about myself at 215 pounds as a I did at well over 300 pounds, it hardly seemed worth it to put any effort into keeping weight off. I hit my peak weight right about the time I decided to transition in 2011, still not really making the connection between my dysphoria and my terrible self-esteem.

When I first started to transition, some of that self-hate finally started to fade. Even as I was still learning how to girl properly, the alignment between what I expected to see and actually saw did wonders to convince that wasn’t actually anywhere near as ugly as I had spent 20+ years convincing myself that I was. But that surge in confidence was pretty strictly limited to my face. I still hated my body. I wore long sleeves and jeans at all times, even when Michigan summers made their inevitable climb into the temps that feel like you’re being smothered with a hot, wet blanket. I wore Spanx and obnoxiously padded bras pretty much constantly to shove my body into some semblance of an acceptable shape. I was convinced people would recoil at uncovered arm fat, or that my bare broad shoulders would be an instant tell that I was a trans woman and would cause a scene. Even on our annual summer camping/canoeing/drinking trip — made up entirely of awesomely supportive and accepting friends — I kept covered as much as humanly possible at all times. I felt like I wasn’t allowed to have bare skin, because it wasn’t socially acceptable.

I basically learned to hate summer. Summer meant being hot and sweaty and gross because I was too disgusted with myself to dress for the weather. At least during the winter, I had an excuse for covering up. I have a distinct memory of a date with my partner two summers ago where I was walking miles around downtown Detroit in 97° July heat wearing jeans and a ¾ sleeve shirt, literally soaked through with sweat. I’m not sure if I’ll ever understand why I decided that being soaked with sweat would be less unattractive/repulsive than exposing enough skin to stay cool, but it somehow seemed reasonable at the time.

Really, it was a tank top and a new tattoo that started me down the road to loving/embracing/flaunting all my squishy bits. I had always owned copious numbers of tank tops, because, as a friend once told me, fat girls gotta layer. But, I always wore them with something, be it a sweater or button up or another top. While having my extensive shoulder and collarbone tattoos done last spring, a tank top always seemed to be the most convenient thing to wear to my tattoo appointment; it offered maximum access to the skin to be worked, without requiring me to sit and shiver mostly-shirtless in the middle of a tattoo shop. So, a win for everyone. Generally, I’d wear a cardigan to and from the appointment, because I’m the kind of lesbian who wears a lot of cardigans. But, after one particularly gruesome touch-up session where it felt like half my body was covered in vaseline and gauze, I opted to keep my sweater off. Well, I say opted, but really… I just couldn’t get the damned thing back on. In shocking news: the world did not end and I was not chased through the streets by a pitchfork mob for daring to be chubby in public. People were far more concerned about the excessive bandaging than about a fat girl in a tank top.

Look at all these fucks I’m not giving.

During all that tattoo aftercare, covering up just wasn’t an option. I had open wounds that could be measured in square feet, and I ruined four shirts with blood and serum before I gave up and stuck to tank tops. There was a moment during one of those days where I did my usual vain “last check in the mirror before I leave the house” thing, caught a look at myself with my broad shoulders, wide-strap tank, and tattoos and thought, “Oh… wait… I actually look… okay.” Nothing had really changed about my body in that intervening year. I had lost a little bit of weight, but it wasn’t something you could see in that part of my body. But, somewhere along the road of transition, I had stopped hating my body. It had finally become my body in a way that it really hadn’t ever felt before, and I loved every bit of its imperfect, fat-in-a-not-socially-acceptable way skin.

Around that time, I also really started to let go of the idea that I owed the world anything with regard to my appearance. I had stopped shaving any part of my body with any kind of regularity, embraced the art of messy hair, and stopped wearing foundation every day. Not worrying that I was dressing in a manner that was “acceptable” for a fat girl followed right along with it. It was fucking freeing. I got my share of asshole comments, of course. We live a in a shitty world where people say awful shit to fat people, and I’m pretty used to it. But I didn’t really get any more douche commentary than I usually had. No one spontaneously started misgendering me. No pitchfork mobs started; no rotten fruit was thrown at me. My bare shoulders and arms (and eventually even legs!) completely failed to cause an apocalyptic tragedy.

Bombarded with a steady stream of shame and objectification, learning to love our own bodies can be a serious challenge for just about anyone these days. But trans women and fat women (and especially fat trans women) have their bodies so constantly denigrated and ridiculed that it often feels like we’re not even allowed to love our bodies or see them as beautiful. We’re told that exposed skin is something that’s reserved for those who have bodies others want to see. If you don’t believe me, ask any fat girl how many times she’s been told “no one wants to see that” by friends, family members, or random strangers. But, my body and skin are just as beautiful and just as worthy of being exposed as any thin cis woman. Given where I was with my dysmorphia just a few years ago, it feels so good to be able to say with confidence that I think my body is perfect and beautiful just the way it is. Every time I step outside in shorts and a tank top, it feels like a little victory and my own personal fat rebellion. Maybe I’ll even try and figure out how to work this new crop-top trend.

I Said Yes To The (Gay Wedding) Dress

feature image via shutterstock

When Penny* and I decided that we were going to get married, I really only had one super-traditional thing that I absolutely insisted on: I was going to wear a beautiful white dress. There were lots of things on my “these things would be really awesome if you’re okay with them” list, but the dress was 100% non-negotiable. I’d honestly have taken a courthouse ceremony and no reception, so long as I got my moment in that fucking dress.

From a feminist standpoint, I totally get all the really terrible, oppressive buillshit that the white dress represents, and I absolutely respect my partner’s (and anyone else’s) decision to not engage in the whole white-dress phenomenon. But for me, the dress isn’t about my purity or virginity, especially since I’m thoroughly debauched and don’t believe in the concept of virginity. It’s me clinging to one tiny ritual, one single tradition as a stand-in for the all the rites of passage that I missed out on because I was assigned the wrong gender at birth. I didn’t get to shop for homecoming or prom dresses (well, at least not for me) or to spend the day with my girlfriends getting hair and nails done on the big day. I skipped our formals in college because it felt depressing to wear a suit to them. I didn’t get to wear a terrible dress with four other girls when one of my close college friends got married. Part of me will always feel a little robbed because I can’t go back and re-experience those things as the real me. I can’t change the past, but dammit, I can walk down the aisle, out and proud and every bit the person I want to be, in a fucking white dress while everyone oohs and ahhs about how gorgeous I look.

The funny part is that I’m really not that feminine, for the most part. Sure, I have a weird obsession with vintage-y clothing, pin-up makeup, and retro hair. But, most of the time I find it all to be way too much work, and opt for comfy clothes, the bare minimum makeup, and my hair in ponytail. I’m thoroughly comfortable with my non-butch/non-femme alt-librarian-dyke look. And yet, shortly after we set our wedding date, and before we had even announced it to anyone, I found myself obsessively poring over wedding websites, trying to piece together what I wanted in my wedding dress, and sheepishly watching episodes of Say Yes To The Dress.

Planning a queer wedding in Michigan is no small thing. Since marriage equality still hasn’t made it to Michigan (we’re having our ceremony in Canada), we’re the first queer/lesbian wedding that many of our vendors have ever done. And, since I’m the person who’s actually local to where our wedding is happening, I’ve had to handle a lot of the vendor interactions. Having the double anxiety of both having to worry if they’re going to get weird because we’re queer AND wondering if they’re going to clock me as trans and get weird about that has made the entire process pretty effing stressful. In the midst of all that, I knew I still needed to find a dress, but kept putting off the actual going-in-and-trying-on of dresses, because, to be perfectly honest, I was absolutely terrified. Even though I’ve been out for years now and haven’t really had any bad experiences, trying on clothes in stores is still something that makes me pretty nervous. I’m convinced someone is going to suspect I’m trans and freak the fuck out that I dare use the dressing room. The idea of walking into a bridal shop and being measured and all the other super up-close interactions that come with looking for a wedding dress… well, let’s just say I had visions of assaults, arrests, and my face splashed all over the local news.

So, during my last visit to New York to see Penny, we stood just 92 days out from wedding, and I still didn’t have a dress, still hadn’t even tried on a dress. One Friday evening, while we were discussing what items we still had to take care of on our wedding to-do list, we happened across what we had started to call “the dress conundrum.” Since we had decided to eschew a wedding party, neither of us had someone who was contractually obligated to endure something as tortuous as wedding dress shopping with us, and were therefore quietly kicking the can down road. Penny is cisgender, but finds the rigamarole of shopping (especially dress shopping) exhausting and annoying. Still, she had at least mustered enough patience for one trip into a bridal shop — a far sight better than me. In midst of our discussion, we realized that Burlington, VT (just a short drive away) was probably going to be the place most convenience to either of us where a cis/trans queer couple could shop for wedding dresses without raising a ruckus. We also realized that we had zero attachment to the whole “you shouldn’t see your intended in their wedding dress before the wedding” thing, and decided that the best way for us to tackle dress-finding was as a team. Being the women of action that we are, we opted to tackle the problem the next day, but gave ourselves a firm four-hour time limit to save our sanity from the onslaught of foofery and heteronormativity that would be coming our way.

Our first stop on Mission: Wedding Dresses was a national chain, mostly because we literally had no idea where else to start. We walked to a scene that I can only describe as total chaos. There were easily 50 people in the already fairly-cramped store, and the whole thing was frankly, totally overwhelming. I distinctly remember grabbing Penny’s hand firmly as if to keep from getting swept away by the sea of white satin, ivory organza, and the snapping jaws of potential bridezillas. The middle aged woman manning what appeared to be a check-in desk eyed us with what we assumed to be suspicion or confusion and asked if we had an appointment. Being total wedding rookies, we were absolutely appointment-less. It hadn’t occurred to either of us that trying on wedding dresses was the sort of thing one actually scheduled purposefully, instead of deciding on a last minute whim when the both of you were feeling particularly bold. The check-in woman snipped that they were “full for the day” and couldn’t possibly squeeze us in. I wasn’t super inclined to press the issue, but I had worked up the nerve to walk into the effing place, so I was going to at least LOOK at dresses, and I wandered off to do just that. Penny, on the other hand, had decided that trying on wedding dresses was our agenda that day and, come hell or high water, we were going to fucking try on wedding dresses. What cajoling and insistence she applied to the women working there, I’ll never know, but a few minutes later she found me and informed that they had found a spot for us.

About 15 minutes later, our names were called (well, butchered, but ya know), and we were introduced to our “bridal consultant,” a woman so bubbly I honestly feared she might float away. Penny and I later hypothesized that she was the person in the store whose duty it was to handle “weird people.” When she began to ask us what we were looking for in our dresses, it became readily apparent just how bad both Penny and I are at girl stuff. Our responses were slightly more eloquent than “They should be dresses,” but only just. I was waiting for this woman to throw up her hands in exasperation, mumble something about lesbians, and just storm off. Lucky for us, it appears that bridal consultants (or at least this particular bridal consultant) have the patience of Buddhist monks and the interrogation skills of an FBI agent, because she slowly managed to coax quasi-useful words out of us before whisking off to our shared dressing room.

Oh man, the shared dressing room. We were definitely the only girls sharing a dressing room. And, we were very obviously “together.” While the woman working with us never batted an eyelash, everyone else around kept eyeing us as if we were going to suddenly start having loud lesbian sex once the door was closed.

In any case, it turns out that the first step of wedding dress shopping is find a strapless bra that fits. This was yet another case in which Penny and I thoroughly demonstrated our utter failure at girl stuff. Both of us wear bras every day, and were relatively confident in our bra sizes. It still took us both three tries to get one that even marginally fit us, and the hilariously fumbling as we assisted each other with the FIFTEEN hooks on the back of these monstrous long-line bras. Again, we were expecting frustration or impatience from the woman working with us as we repeatedly failed at something as basic as KNOWING WHAT SIZE BRA WE WEAR, but her cheery, helpful disposition never wavered.

By this point, we were both already pretty overwhelmed by the entire process and wondering what the hell we had gotten ourselves into. But we had a mission, and we had come this far, so we pushed on. With the bra situation finally handled, our first round of dresses arrived. This is when things really started to get silly. As it turns out, not-petite girls both trying to putting on fancy dresses in a small dressing room at the same time is both hilarious and complicated, and we bumped into each other, knocked each other over, and I caught an elbow in square in the boob. Not shockingly, both our first dresses were a no, and so quickly another pair of dresses arrived. And then another. And then another. At one point, there were eight dresses, plus two girls and crammed into a 6×6 cubicle. It look (and felt) like we were wrestling with a giant albino squid made of satin, organza, chiffon, and tulle. All the while, our bubbly consultant patiently endured us, noting what we liked and hated, and slowly narrowing down the pool of dresses.

Then, it happened. After heaven-only-knows how many dresses, I stepped out the dressing room for the umpteenth time and looked in the mirror, and didn’t just shout “NOPE” and stomp back in. I just stared for a minute, speechless. It was THE dress. It wasn’t quite the tear-filled Say Yes To The Dress moment, but it was definitely a little emotional. Penny, who had been switching to another dress, actually asked me if I was okay because it was the first time I had stopped making cranky noises in the last 45 minutes. I walked around, I twirled, I admired myself from all sides. But, mostly I just stared at the beautiful woman in the white dress in the mirror, awestruck.

Despite all the planning, and all the talking, and all the money we had spent, it was THAT moment that suddenly made the wedding feel very real. This was the dress I was going to get married in, that I would be wearing when I affirmed my desire to spend the rest of my life with my amazing partner. But, it also touched something deeper, more complex, more fundamental to my transition and my womanhood. I had avoided transition for so many years because I feared I would be ugly, that I would be undesirable, that I would be unloveable. Even once I moved passed those fears, something like this seemed like little more than a pipe dream. If you had told me that I’d be shopping for wedding dresses exactly two years to the day after starting medical transition, I’d have yelled at you for being cruel. And yet, there I was. It wasn’t going to entirely make up for 28 years lost to confusion and dysphoria and all the moments, big and small, lost with those years. But, I think in some ways, it was the first time that I really knew, really understood in the depths of my heart how far I had come, and that I had really, truly reclaimed my life as my own. It’s not that my wedding is a validation of my identity as a woman, because I get that from looking in the mirror every day. Rather, it’s an affirmation of how much more is possible in a life lived authentically, a potent reminder of the amazing possibilities that have opened to me. It’s beautiful realization of how much I’ve gained because of that decision — happiness, contentment, and love.

So, after my big personal moment, I knew that I had found the dress, but I had to convince the rational parts of my brain that I had exhausted all possibilities. So, I tried a few more dresses. I think I actually tried on just about every dress in the store that was anywhere near my size. Penny found her dress that day, too. Not white, as she had decided early on that a white dress wasn’t for her. Our dresses are quite different, much like we are. But, I had a moment with both of us in our dresses, standing next to each other, looking at the huge wall of mirror, where I could actually visualize the wedding, could finally construct an image of this thing we had been talking about for six months, and I couldn’t help smile all over and wrap my arm around her waist. We waded through the last bit of paperwork, paid for the dresses, and walked by the to car, hand-in-hand, just as we’ll walk down the aisle in a few short months. We decided that, while somewhat unconventional, shopping for our dresses together felt right for us, and that we would have missed out in an intangible something if it hadn’t been an experience we had shared with one another. It was a powerful reminder of the incredible partnership we share that this wedding is meant to celebrate. We glanced at our phones as we pulled away. Just about two hours had passed since we had walked in, putting us well under our 4-hour time-limit. We’re nothing if not efficient.

*Name changed for privacy.

Janet Mock Schools Us, Inspires Us, Makes Us Cry on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday!

Towards the end of Janet Mock’s memoir Redefining Realness, she quotes Oprah Winfrey, saying “Your past does not define you. You can step out of your history and create a new day for yourself. Even if the entire culture is saying, ‘You can’t.’ Even if every single possible bad thing that can happen to you does. You can keep going forward.” So it only makes sense that on her journey as a writer and trans advocate, she would eventually end up sitting across from the very woman she quoted, taking even more steps to create that new day for herself.

Much of the conversation was spent discussing things from Redefining Realness, about Mock’s young life and how she navigated her girlhood as a girl who was told that she was supposed to be a boy. She told a story of being in kindergarten and seeing a cubby hole painted blue with her birth name on it, and how she just wanted to be able to change the name and color on that box, and how she knew that society was telling her those feelings were wrong. She talked about how knowing that she was really a girl was her first conviction, it was the first thing she knew for sure about herself. They talked about Janet being a young girl and making her father proud by playing “smear the queer,” because that’s what a boy was supposed to do. They talked about how for a while, neither she nor her parents had the language to describe who she was.

Oprah also admitted that she didn’t have all the language to talk about trans people, and asked Mock for help with that. Oprah said that she became comfortable talking about sexuality as a spectrum a long time ago, but she, and much of society, still isn’t caught up on talking about gender the same way. When Mock told her that no, she didn’t really used to be a boy, and she definitely wasn’t born a boy, Oprah was openly confused. But this wasn’t like what we’ve seen before with other interviewers being confused about how to talk to or about trans women recently. This was an honest, open and vulnerable conversation where Oprah was invited to make mistakes and ask questions, and most importantly find answers. Mock told her, “Because of the appearance of my genitals I was told that I needed to love a woman and be masculine. As I gained agency in my life, I was able to rebut that.” She was able to say that she was a girl and assert that identity no matter what other people thought she looked like. I really liked the way she put it, “what becomes fact? Was the truth I felt as a child fact, or is what society says a fact?”

Maybe my favorite moment of the entire interview was when they talked about Janet’s friend Wendi. If you recall from the book, she was the first person to acknowledge that young Janet was a trans girl, introducing herself by asking, “Mary! you mahu?” (using a Hawaiian term that can be loosely translated to ‘transgender.’) Watching Janet Mock tear up and say “At twelve years old I was given the gift of having a best friend who saw me,” was enough to destroy my heart and force me to pause the interview because I was crying too much. She talks about what a pivotal moment it was to have this friend who reflected who she was really was when everyone else was trying to deny that, and it was beautiful.

We’re lucky to have someone like Janet Mock as such a vocal advocate for trans people. She talks openly about her “pretty privilege” and how that makes her life safer and makes some parts of being trans easier. She’s very specific about how she tells her story, and she also makes sure to point out that it’s only hers. While she sees herself as having always been a girl ever since she was able to name herself, she points out that others might not identify that way. While she had surgery, she points out that there are plenty of women who are fine with never doing that. The main message that she sends is that, in a world where there’s so much that other people say that we are, we need to find our own truth and our own “most authentic self.”

As always, Mock was at the top of her game, mixing real education and information about trans women with incredibly moving stories from her personal life. There’s a moment where Oprah has to pause and take a little moment for herself before continuing on to say that she now realizes what the message of Mock’s book is. She says she had an “a-ha” moment and that she understands that the trans struggle is a universal one, that the message of the book is “I want you to see me for who I really am.” So many people are struggling to figure out a way to wrap their minds around trans people, and here Oprah and Janet Mock are able to boil it down to this simple sentence.

While the news media is still buzzing about another recent interview with a trans woman, Janet Mock sat down with Oprah and delivered one of the best discussions about trans issues I’ve ever seen on television. Oprah said, “Redefining Realness is the beginning of a new way of thinking about sexuality and gender,” and that Mock is a “trailblazing leader of this movement,” and I couldn’t agree more. This interview is a must-watch for anyone who wants to understand more about trans people, anyone who wants to be inspired to live their truth and anyone who wants to see an interview with a truly amazing, powerful and world-changing woman named Janet Mock.

You can watch the whole interview here.

Daily Fix: Baltimore’s State of Emergency and Other News

Hello mellow mushrooms! Gather round folks, there’s lots of new developments and new stories to discuss, so let’s get to it!

Good Morning Baltimore

After declaring a state of emergency, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan activated the National Guard Monday evening, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake instituted a city-wide curfew from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. starting Tuesday and Baltimore City public schools canceled classes on Tuesday, after people looted stores, threw rocks and bricks at riot-clad police officers, injuring several and set police cars and stores a blaze in the wake of Freddie Gray’s funeral.

Twenty-five-year-old Freddie Gray died April 19th after being in a coma due to injuries sustained during his arrest by Baltimore police. His death is still under investigation but it’s confirmed he was handcuffed and put in leg irons but wasn’t seatbelted en route to the station. Many believe Gray was subjected to a “rough ride,” where police deliberately make abrupt stops and sharp turns to intentionally bang up the detained person.

On Monday, the rioting and looting broke out near the New Shiloh Baptist Church where friends, family, activists and officials gathered to pay their last respects to Gray. The Rev. Jamal Bryant spoke at the funeral about Baltimore’s poor, the lack of job opportunities and the situation of black young men like Gray. He called for black people to not be silent in the face of injustice. “Get your black self up and change this city,” Bryant said. “I don’t know how you can be black in America and be silent. With everything we’ve been through, ain’t no way in the world you can sit here and be silent in the face of injustice.”

by Jose Luis Magana/AP

Police clashed with teenagers that began around 3 p.m. According to the The Baltimore Sun, it seems the incident is related to an organized action in response to Freddie Gray’s death.

“The incident stemmed from a flier that circulated widely among city school students via social media about a “purge” to take place at 3 p.m., starting at Mondawmin Mall and ending downtown. Such memes have been known to circulate regularly among city school students, based on the film “The Purge,” about what would happen if all laws were suspended.

The flier included an image of protesters smashing the windshield of a police car Saturday during a march spurred by the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old man who suffered a spinal cord injury earlier this month after being arrested by city police.”

Other reports from locals say that there was no planned student action, but that city transportation was already shut down when students were let out of school for the day, and police were already waiting in riot gear, causing confusion and panic. It’s unclear how things began but The Sun says from then “the confrontation escalated quickly.” Youth surrounded a police car and smashed its windows. They threw bricks and rocks at police and police responded by throwing them back and fired tear gas and pepper balls. Cars were set on fire, store windows were broken and businesses were looted including a CVS that was later engulfed in smoke. At least 15 police officers were injured. The Baltimore Sun reports, “The Mayor’s office said 202 arrests were made overnight, and that the city’s fire department dealt with fires in 144 vehicles and 15 buildings.”

by Patrick Semansky/AP

Police said earlier in the day they received a “credible threat” that three gangs, the Black Guerilla Family, the Bloods and the Crips, entered into a partnership to “take out” law-enforcement officers. However in a local news interview, some gang members explained their truce and said they didn’t come together to harm police but to stand together as black men who want justice for Freddie Gray’s death. There was police presence in the neighborhood during Gray’s funeral.

On Monday afternoon, in anticipation of protests, police urged surrounding businesses and institutions like the University of Maryland to close early. Later in the day, the Orioles postponed their game against the White Sox; today’s Orioles game has been postponed as well.

Monday’s disruptions follows week-long demonstrations and protests until on Saturday some demonstrators smashed police car windows and store fronts near Camden Yards, the baseball park. Protestors say baseball fans and bystanders were saying racist things to them and agitated the protestors which resulted in the disruptions. Twelve people were arrested.

Here’s some food for thought to put these riots into perspective:

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes:

“When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is “correct” or “wise,” any more than a forest fire can be “correct” or “wise.” Wisdom isn’t the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the rioters themselves.”

by Jim Bourg/Reuters

The Radical Faggot writes,

“Militance is about direct action which defends our communities from violence. It is about responses which meet the political goals of our communities in the moment, and deal with the repercussions as they come. It is about saying no, firmly drawing and holding boundaries, demanding the return of stolen resources. And from Queer Liberation and Black Power to centuries-old movements for Native sovereignty and anti-colonialism, it is how virtually all of our oppressed movements were sparked, and has arguably gained us the only real political victories we’ve had under the rule of empire.”

#Not1More LGBTQ Deportation

Here’s Maddie with an update for you:

Nicoll Hernández-Polanco, a transgender woman who was being detained in a men’s immigration detention facility in Florence, Arizona, has been released from detention and, according to the Tucson-based organization Mariposas Sin Fronteras, granted asylum! This is an amazing win for Hernández-Polanco and her supporters, and an important step in the ongoing struggle to end the deportation and detention of the LGBTQ migrant community. In a press release GetEQUAL stated, “ICE and DHS are incapable of protecting our LGBTQ community from this abuse. Detention centers are not the answer to a broken immigration system; no matter what policy is enforced or what alternatives are set in place, detention will never be the solution for our community. Detention is inhumane no matter what form it takes!”

Nicoll’s release came the day before the five year anniversary of S.B. 1070, the state law passed in Arizona in 2010 which requires police to ascertain a person’s immigration status if they believe there is “reasonable suspicion” the person is undocumented. The definition of “reasonable suspicion” is highly ambiguous, but it is widely understood as a thinly-veiled cover for legalizing and facilitating racial profiling of immigrant communities. S.B. 1070 and copycat laws in other states increase collaboration between local police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and facilitate detention and deportation which fragment immigrant communities and families.

To mark this anniversary, #Not1More is holding a virtual conference on the Next Generation of Resistance against S.B. 1070 and the proliferation of ICE in communities across the U.S. Sessions so far have focused on life in Arizona under S.B. 1070 (in English), civil disobedience in the movement for migrant rights (in Spanish), and women in the movement (in Spanish), all of which happened in 30-minute Google hangouts which you can watch on the #Not1More website. The virtual conference continues next Saturday with a panel looking at the situation faced by those excluded from the President’s most recent executive action on immigration.

A Grab Bag Full of News

+ Tiffany Cannon and Lauren Horbal say a landlord refused to rent to them because they’re gay. The couple say they found the perfect new place but the landlord didn’t even give them a chance and didn’t run their application after finding out they were together. “He was like ‘What are y’all relationships?’ and I was like ‘Well, Lauren is my girlfriend and Sarah is our roommate, she’s our friend’,” said Cannon. “And he was like, ‘Oh.’ A local news station contacted the landlord and he said he rejected their application because they filled it out incorrectly. Unfortunately in Tennessee it’s perfectly legal for landlords to deny people housing because they’re queer.

Tiffany Cannon and Lauren Horbal

+ Arizona Governor Doug Ducey ordered the Department of Child Safety to reverse its adoption policy which banned gays from adopting as a couple. DCS allowed married gay couples to adopt in October, after a federal court struck down Arizona’s same-sex marriage ban. But then state Attorney General Mark Brnovich advised DCS that the marriage ruling didn’t apply to the state agency, so it went back to its former policy which allowed gay people to adopt but as individuals. Ducey says there’s just a need for loving foster and adoptive parents.

+ A 20-year-old lesbian activist and a University of Mary Washington student was murdered in her off-campus home by her housemate. Grace Rebecca Mann was found strangled in her home after attending GLSEN’s Day of Silence event on campus. Her 30-year-old housemate Steven Vander Briel has been charged with first degree murder and abduction.

+ Gay hotel owners apologize on social media for hosting a “fireside chat” and dinner for anti-gay senator and presidential hopeful Ted Cruz. Supposedly Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass, owners of Out NYC Hotel, didn’t know that Ted Cruz was so anti-gay, but I think that’s total bullshit. “I made a bad mistake,” Reisner wrote on Facebook. “I was ignorant, naive and much too quick in accepting a request to co-host a dinner with Cruz at our home without taking the time to learn his positions. I’ve spent the past 24 hours reviewing videos of Cruz’ statements on gay marriage and I am angry and shocked. I deeply apologize for hurting the gay community and so many of our friends, family, allies, customers and employees. I will try my best to make up for my poor judgement. I’m sorry.” Reisner and Weiderpass hosted Cruz in their home for an intimate dinner with about 12 guests that may or may not have been a fundraiser. Three events slated to be held at their hotels have now boycotted the establishment and moved their events elsewhere.

+ Los Angeles fast food workers are fasting for 15 days to get the attention of city council members to raise the minimum wage to $15. The fast will end with a rally on Wednesday.

Say My Name, Mey’s My Name

feature image via Shutterstock

It’s time for another edition of SE(N)O, an essay series on A+ for personal stories we wish we could tell on the accessible-to-our-employers-and-everyone-we’ve-ever-known mainsite, but can’t for personal and professional reasons.

For most of the first 25 years of my 28 years on earth, everybody treated me like a man. Well, like a gay man, because a lot of people thought I was gay, but still — like a man. It’s hard to shake that. When I write about my life before I came out, I’m afraid people will read that writing and imagine me as a guy, like how I imagine someone doing the things they’re describing when I’m reading about their past. So I want to talk to you about my name, but doing so summons a lot of fear — that you’ll see me as less of a woman when I do.

Names have a lot of magic in them. In folklore, the idea of knowing someone or something’s true name is a powerful one, and someone sharing it with you is them at their most vulnerable. Many Catholic parents, mine included, name their children after saints of people from the Bible. Our obsession with names doesn’t end there: next, a Catholic will go through the sacrament of Confirmation, becoming a full member of the church, at which point we chose another saint we want to emulate and we take their name. Names are bigger than the letters that make them up. They fit an entire personality inside them, an entire history, they fit an entire soul.

The journey to finding and deciding on my real name, Melinda Valdivia Rude, took about four years.

The first name I wanted for myself was Madeline. It had long been my favorite “girl name” so it was an obvious first choice. Unfortunately, it’s also one of my oldest friend’s middle name. I’d hoped she’d remain my friend after I came out (and she did), and I didn’t want to add another layer of weirdness to an already-sure-to-be-weird occasion by adding the possibility that she’d wonder if I’d named myself after her. So, after over a year of going back and forth, I moved on.

Next, I thought about naming myself after one of my favorite writers, like Shirley, Dorothy, Flannery or Sandra. I liked some of those names more than others (I don’t think I look like much of a Shirley), but even the ones I liked the most never felt comfortable. All of them felt like I was just trying to imitate a woman, like I was trying to copy a woman I looked up to and admired instead of being my own woman. I know that’s a deeply flawed logic, but when you’re a trans woman who doesn’t know any other trans women in real life and grew up being taught by the media and news that trans women are just men pretending to be women, you often get stuck on some really shaky logical ground.

So, onwards: I came to really like the idea of coming out being a way to reconnect with my Mexican heritage, and after years of complaining to my parents for not giving me a more “Mexican” name, I had a chance to change that. I considered Ximena and Guadalupe and a few others. I really liked this idea and thought it could actually work until it hit me that changing my first name also meant changing my initials and I didn’t want to lose that. As much as I couldn’t stand people using my first name, I strangely loved my initials.

My whole life I’d been using my initials way more than any kid should… which I now realize may have been ‘cause I wanted to avoid using my birth name. The initials “MCR” are so much more gender neutral than, you know… Matthew.

Whew.

So, there it is, and now I’m gonna take a break for a minute.

I already sat with the last word of that paragraph blank for about ten minutes before I finally wrote in the name. Just looking at it right now, it looks so ugly. I know it’s just a name, that it’s not really my name, that it has no power over me. But also, honestly? It kinda does.

I have to use it on legal forms, which makes me wince. When people slip up and call me by my old name, it hits my ears like a thud, like a hammer smashing against the side of my head. It literally sounds louder, like it’s being yelled directly into my ear. Sometimes I get so stuck on hearing the name used in reference to me that I don’t even hear the next few sentences. It hurts, it can ruin my whole day.

But I’m here to explore things that might be painful, power through them, and get to the other side, so let’s get back into it.

The name I eventually settled on was Matilde (because I liked the way it’s spelled), and by “settled on” I do mean settled. I wasn’t happy with the name, and to be honest, the main reason I went with it was because it would be an easier transition for my friends. Let me say that again. I was trying to minimize my transition to make it easier on other people. Just a quick message for all the trans people reading this, you don’t have to do this. It’s okay to do this thing for yourself. You don’t have to sacrifice your own happiness to make your transition easier for other people. But that’s what I did.

I started going by Matilde whenever I was with all my friends. It was definitely a thousand times better than them calling me by my birth name, but it wasn’t actually good. It was like every time someone wanted to talk to me or about me in the past, they would punch me with a pair of brass knuckles and now they were just flicking me really hard on the arm.

Eventually, I got tired of the constant pain in the arm, and so I decided to change my name —again. This made me nervous. I’d already committed to one name, and I was afraid that all my friends would think that I didn’t know what I was doing. They wouldn’t be totally wrong to think that, I mean, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was stumbling in the dark, trying to find a name that fit.

What ultimately brought me to decide on my present name was my family. I’ve got a really strong connection to my family, especially my mother’s side. I’m lucky that they’ve always been extremely supportive of me, including my coming out as trans — I’m actually closer with my mom now than I was before coming out and I’d already started using my mother’s maiden name, Valdivia, as a part of my nom de plume. So, one day I just texted her, “Before I was born, and before the doctor told you I was going to be a boy, did you pick out a girl name for me?”

“I always liked the name Melinda.”

Now there was a name! Melinda. I could keep my first initial but wouldn’t be reminded of my old name at all. I could write and say this name aloud and it really felt natural. My mom chose it, this was the name she’d thought of when she thought about me growing inside of her belly. I fit inside this name.

The only thing left was making sure people would say my name right. Now that I’m in charge of my own name, I’m sure as hell not going to let people mangle it. “May-LEEN-duh,” not “Muh-lihn-duh.” Back when I was a 16-year-old high school student at the Idaho Hispanic Youth Symposium, I met this girl named Melisa, pronounced “May-Lees-uh,” not “Meh-lihs-uh.” Whenever someone tried to pronounce it the standard (White) American way, she would stop them mid sentence and correct them. She was the first person I ever saw take control of their name like that, and it stuck with me. I wanted to be able to confidently correct others when they got my name wrong. Now I can.

I also started trying out nicknames. I wanted to walk around in my name, wear it in, make it comfortable. I went for the obvious choice, Mel. If it worked for Scary Spice, why not me? But there was something a little off. Once again, it was my Mom who came to my rescue. We were emailing back and forth when she was trying to write “Mel,” but somehow (I’m still not sure how she missed the key this bad) she ended up writing “Mey.” From where I was sitting, it looked like my mom had just come up with a cute nickname for me, and one that reinforced the way I wanted to pronounce it. My name was starting to get a history, a personality. It was starting to feel really, really comfortable. I really felt like I was hitting my stride with this whole name thing.

Now that I know my true name I feel like I really have power over myself. That’s a big feeling, finally having autonomy. Melinda Valdivia Rude. This is who I was meant to be. This fits. Hearing it isn’t like a punch in the arm or a flick to the wrist, it’s like linking arms with the whole rest of the world and confidently walking into the future.

Bruce Jenner Is Transgender: Let’s Talk About The Coming Out Interview

According to GLAAD, Bruce Jenner “has not indicated that a new name or pronoun should be used,” therefore GLAAD has indicated that the press should respect his wishes and continue to refer to Jenner by his current name and with male pronouns until otherwise informed. GLAAD writes, “Some transgender people prefer to change their name and/or pronoun quickly. Other transgender people may take more time to decide what name and/or pronoun feels right to them. To be respectful, use the name and/or pronoun requested by the individual.”

Last night on ABC, Diane Sawyer sat down with legendary Olympic decathlon gold medalist and reality TV star Bruce Jenner for an interview about the long-speculated-upon story that Jenner is transgender. In two hours we learned Jenner is indeed a trans woman, and he’s struggled with feeling this way for his entire life, he hopes his story will educate people and maybe even save some lives and Diane Sawyer probably should’ve done some more homework before doing an interview like this. We also learned we still have a long way to go before trans women are treated with full respect by the media.

Before I get into anything else, I want to say congratulations to Jenner. Coming out as trans can be a terrifying thing, and I imagine that when you live in as big of a spotlight as he does, it must be even more terrifying. I wish him nothing but the the best in all of this, I hope he’s able to get some rest from the media assault that’s been launched against him and I hope when people see him coming out and talking about his journey to get here, they recognize and respect his humanity and then transfer that respect for humanity to all other trans women they see.

ABC Breaking US News | US News Videos

I was actually very pleasantly surprised by most of what we saw. As the interview started and Jenner welcomed Sawyer into his house, he honestly did seem really nervous, especially for someone who’s lived the last eight years in front of the camera and most of the last forty in the public eye. His first few sentences were filled with heavy pauses and tears wiped away with tissues. At first he came out more indirectly by saying things like “I’ve always been confused with my gender identity since I was this big,” motioning with his hand, and imagining God saying “let’s give him the soul of a female and see how he deals with that” when he was being created. Finally, Sawyer asked if he’s a woman, receiving the reply “yes, for all intents and purposes, I’m a woman.”

Jenner told the story of a person who lived their life in public, but always felt like they were telling a lie by being the person the public saw. He talked about how at the height of his Olympic glory, he was actually a confused “her.” He didn’t come out because he was afraid that that lie would disappoint people, especially his family. He said he was always “running away from [his] life, running away from who [he] was” and that he was scared for his life. As much as the previous coverage of his transition tried to strip him of his humanity, this interview built it back up. He was able to tell his story, and he was able to answer Sawyer’s questions when he seemed to be completely lost about what Jenner was talking about. Jenner talked about coming out, or at least partially coming out to his wives over the years. He talked about how, for five years in the 80’s, he was actually on HRT and was transitioning, but he lost his nerve and didn’t want to hurt his children, so he stopped.

It’s kind of remarkable to think this might’ve been the biggest “trans moment” in American history — by that I mean it’s likely more people were watching this interview and therefore learning about and talking about trans people, at least at this level and depth of understanding, than at any single moment before. For older generations, Jenner is one of the greatest and most famous athletes that they’ve seen in their lives. He’s a genuine legend and a true American Sports Hero. He was on the cover of the Wheaties box. And he’s a trans woman.

Jenner also talked about some very serious issues with a lot of aplomb. He talked about how he became deeply suicidal after the paparazzi ambushed him when he went to get a tracheal shave. He talked about how many trans people face serious issues, and while he doesn’t see himself as a spokesperson for the trans community, he’d be happy to work with the community to make things better for other trans people. He even pointed out that Black trans women are the most at risk for anti-trans violence. I’m going to say that again, a member of one of the most famous families in the US specifically talked about violence against Black trans women on a prime time interview that was expected to be seen by 20 million people. That’s a start.

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A post shared by Khloé Kardashian (@khloekardashian)

Jenner also talked about how his family is taking the news. He said most of his children are being incredibly supportive, and we actually got to see some of his sons talk about him and to him, saying they’re more proud of him now than they’ve ever been. Jenner said while his daughter Khloe is struggling with his transition, Kim, the first daughter that he told, is taking it really well, partially thanks to her husband, Kanye West. It actually brought a tear to my eye when Jenner described how Kanye helped Kim come around to fully support him. In support of Bruce transitioning, Kanye apparently told her, “I can be married to the most beautiful woman in the world, and I am. I can have the most beautiful daughter in the world, I have that. But I’m nothing if I can’t be me. If I can’t be true to myself, they don’t mean anything.”

I feel like Katie Couric’s second interview with Laverne Cox has kind of given me expectations that are too high. If you remember, Couric first had Cox and Carmen Carrera on her show and proceeded to keep asking them about surgery and their genitals even after being told that neither one would talk about that and that they didn’t consider those questions to be appropriate. She then invited Cox to return to the show and really showed us how an ally should learn and grow after they make mistakes. It seemed like Sawyer, especially early on, made a lot of the same mistakes Couric did. Multiple times she asked Jenner if he was gay or interested in men, even though Jenner pretty clearly explained gender and sexuality are different things. At one point she said, “experts say that crossdressing and being transgender aren’t necessarily the same thing,” which is a huge way to undersell the fact that they’re not the same thing at all. However, it wasn’t a complete disaster, and much of the interview was actually pretty respectful. There were times that it was clear Sawyer had been given some guidelines, probably from GLAAD, like when they acknowledged that most members of the trans community don’t want to talk about surgery but Jenner had indicated he was ready to. Still, I felt like Sawyer and ABC kept on dropping the ball only to be saved by Jenner picking it up and running ten yards with it.

Seeing this story unfold over the past four months has been, to say the least, tiring, trying and very strange. You could easily argue the Jenner-Kardashian family is the least private family in the world, so to have the media speculate on this story without a single comment from Jenner for this long has created what is largely an unprecedented situation, during which time the media has been enormously offensive and disrespectful. A person with this much celebrity and this much in the public eye coming out as transgender hasn’t ever happened before, and it’s rare the media starts reporting on a public figure wanting to come out as trans before they say anything about being trans. Probably the closest story we’ve had is that of Chelsea Manning, who we learned was trans from information that she did not release herself during the investigation into her involvement in leaking classified documents. When writing about her story, journalists had to ask themselves if and how they wanted to use this information and if they should change the way they refer to a trans person who hasn’t themselves said they are trans.

via ABC News

This time, the story is even more complicated. As I said, Jenner’s life has been anything but private, especially over the last decade or so, and that’s largely been because Jenner has wanted it that way. No one forced Jenner to have his life filmed for a reality show, and no one forced him to have a relationship with the press that is defined by leaking stories and photos at the most opportune time. Still, though, that very relationship with the media makes this story stand out. The Jenner-Kardashians are perhaps the most media savvy family on the planet, and so one thinks they would have been in control of this story from day one. This just highlights how difficult coming out as a trans woman is and how even people with the kind of media power the Jenner-Kardashians have don’t know how to “control” a situation like this.

One thing I should make clear, is that no matter what else was done, any coverage of Jenner that treated him as a sideshow freak to be gawked and laughed at was patently offensive, extremely dehumanizing and plainly malicious. Magazines that printed photoshopped pictures of him with words like “Secret Double Life” and “Caught Cross-Dressing!” in giant letters with multiple exclamation points served no purpose other than to try to humiliate Jenner and insult and tear down all trans women, Jenner included. This kind of coverage was vile and has no place in journalism.

Tabloids and media outlets that made fun of the way Jenner looks or has been acting or that tried to make money off the idea that trans women are weird and deserve to be stared and laughed at shouldn’t even be relevant to this discussion. They weren’t even covering the story of a former Olympic champion and popular TV star who was coming out as trans, they were simply making transmisogynistic jokes, and lazy ones at that.

Knowing that that kind of coverage was wrong doesn’t completely solve the problem though. People still couldn’t reach a consensus on how to talk about Jenner once it seemed more and more certain he would be publicly coming out sometime in the coming months. In February, MTV posted a story called “What Are The Rules For Talking About Bruce Jenner? Here’s What MTV Is And Isn’t Saying” where they said they weren’t going to speculate on Jenner’s gender and didn’t use a single pronoun for Jenner at all. Other websites and publications said that they would continue to use “he” until Jenner himself would make a public statement. A few places started using “they” to show they weren’t going to make a judgement on Jenner’s gender, but those places seemed few and far between. Although many of the more “respectable” news and media outlets didn’t sensationalize the story the way gossip magazines and some websites and blogs did, that didn’t stop them from still reporting on the story in their own way.

Even trans women have been disagreeing about the best way to approach this story. Some say speculating if a person, even a celebrity and reality TV star, is trans, is disrespectful and irresponsible and since Jenner didn’t say anything about his  gender until last night, the proper way to talk about him would’ve been to use “he/him” pronouns. Assuming anything else would’ve been going too far. Outing a trans woman is an act of violence that can lead to her facing discrimination, alienation from her friends and family and physical violence, and some people saw this speculation as a version of that. Others said once things got to a certain point where we were constantly seeing “leaks” from “sources close to the family” and even statements from Jenner’s mother, the proper thing to do was to use “they” or even “she” pronouns to refer to Jenner. After all, when a trans person, even a closeted trans person, hears themself referred to with the wrong pronouns, it can hurt a lot. However, Jenner told ABC they could use “he/him” for the interview and he often referred to a post-coming-out and internal version of himself as “she/her.” So things are complicated.

Back in February, Redefining Realness author, MSNBC contributor and trans advocate Janet Mock aired a segment on her Shift by MSNBC program So POPular! on the subject of the media’s reporting on Jenner’s trans status, which was still unconfirmed back then. On her show she said trans people need to be respected, and perhaps the best thing for the media to do would be to use “gender-inclusive language” when talking about Jenner until he “stepped forward to tell their own story.” I think this is a good approach, and normally would use “they” in a case like this if it weren’t for the statement released by GLAAD. In her segment, Mock said publications using “he” pronouns because that’s what the family was using were going about things the wrong way.

Any trans person navigating identity, community and especially family could explain that when it comes to explaining your identity to loved ones, family members will likely be slow, resistant, or even hostile, to making name and pronoun changes. So, a journalist could surmise that family members are not going to be the most reliable sources of information, specifically around pronoun usage. And as seen in the People story, the magazine, by relying on family members’ use of masculine pronouns helps spread harmful misinformation about Jenner and all trans people.

She continued on to say it’s time we learn new ways of using pronouns and talking about gender. She said “the media is making every effort to proclaim that Jenner is living as a woman, yet the media refuses to call Jenner ‘she’ or even ‘they.’ If they’re going to report on Jenner’s identity as a woman, we should be vigilant in ensuring we use gender inclusive language, starting with ‘they,’ until Jenner, the only source that actually matters, tells us otherwise.” About thirty minutes into last night’s interview, after Sawyer had repeatedly called Jenner “he,” even when referring to him sitting in the room after coming out, she said that while it’s important to use the correct pronouns when talking to and about trans people, Jenner had told ABC to use “he” for this interview.

One thing this has taught us is our language needs to evolve, and it needs to evolve quickly. Even when the media was trying to be respectful of Jenner’s situation (which to be honest, didn’t really happen all that often), they were struggling to find ways to tell his story. As the media talked about Jenner’s upcoming interview with Diane Sawyer, they continued to use “he” and “him” to describe him. At this point they seemed to be 100% sure he was a woman, and they wouldn’t use “he” when talking about a trans woman like Andreja Pejic (I use her as an example because I saw one TV entertainment show do segments on both women the same day, using “he” to describe Jenner and “she” to talk about Pejic). So why did they continue to use masculine-coded pronouns to refer to Jenner when there are gender-neutral pronouns available? At the time they didn’t know Jenner’s pronouns, and the safe thing to do might have been to use the singular “they.” When we finally heard from Jenner himself and found out that he isn’t indicating that new pronouns should be used yet, it became fine to use “he/him.”

ABC Breaking US News | US News Videos

All of this raises more questions we need to deal with sooner, rather than later. Why are journalists and TV hosts so reluctant to adopt gender-inclusive language? How can you respect the fact that someone is in the closet but also respect their pronouns and not misgender them? Which is more respectful, to refuse to speculate a closeted trans woman’s trans status, or to refuse to misgender her? Which path lets you keep more of your journalistic integrity?

It’s kind of sad, to be honest, that we need Jenner’s coming out to become a teachable moment, but the fact is, it’s not like there are tens of millions of trans people in the US and it’s not like there are dozens of celebrities coming out as trans every day, or even every year. So a lot of this is just new and unexplored territory for the media. That’s not an excuse for bad behavior, though, they need to learn and they need to do better, and hopefully that’s what they’ll do. Hopefully they’ll become more educated on trans issues and terminology and they’ll learn you don’t have to use words that rely on a cis-centric view of the world to report on every person or every issue.

As being trans becomes more accepted and as more and more people become educated on trans issues and trans people at earlier and earlier ages, the number of public figures who come out as trans is only going to go up. While Jenner’s interview is an unprecedented media experience, I think it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Next time we should be prepared.

ABC Breaking US News | US News Videos

The main thing we need to keep in mind is above all else, we need to treat Jenner like the human being that he is. While I do think in some cases it’s fair to report on a person potentially being trans — if the person is in the public eye the way Jenner is, if family members and other sources close to the person keep on leaking information like they did in this case and if they schedule an interview to come out — I don’t think it’s fair at all to do it the way most of the media did it. Once there were quotes from Jenner’s family and team confirming he was trans, I feel it would’ve been most respectful to stop using “he” and “him” to refer to him and adopt “they/them” until we got information from the woman himself. Still, that in no way excuses the gross sensationalism and completely insulting headlines and “scoops” that were printed in magazines and broadcast over the airwaves.

As the interview started to wrap up, Sawyer asked Jenner to put himself in Sawyer’s seat, what would he ask Bruce Jenner if he were in her position? Jenner thought about it for a minute and said he would ask himself “Are you okay?” Again, showing that at the root of all this, he just wants people to see him as a human being. All of the nervousness and apprehension that was so evident at the beginning of the interview seemed to disappear as Jenner showed Sawyer his closet, complete with the dress he was going to wear when the two of them had dinner later. Instead of seeming like he wanted to crawl under the covers and never come out, Jenner now seemed not just happy, but genuinely joyful as he joked about being the tallest girl in the room and hugged Sawyer.

When he was asked what his goal is for what he’ll look like now that he no longer has to pretend to be the “Bruce Jenner” that America has known for so long, he said all he wants is to be able to keep his nail polish on long enough for it to chip off. That’s it. Such a small thing that every woman should be able to take for granted, but before today, he still had to hide it and remove his nail polish before he was ready. He closed out the interview by telling Diane Sawyer that this wasn’t the end for him, saying, “I’m saying goodbye to people’s perception of me and who I am, I’m not saying goodbye to me.” While I’m not ready to place Bruce Jenner on the same level as trans advocates like Janet Mock and Laverne Cox, Bruce Jenner bared his humanity and represented trans women well, and he did it in a brighter spotlight than perhaps anyone has done before.

Daily Fix: No Justice, No Peace for Black Lives Killed By Police and Other News

Good morning, ya bunch of homos! I still haven’t updated my iPhone so I still don’t have the brown princess emoji at my disposal. I had to tell you this now to keep things light because everything else in this post is just bleak and horrible.

Seriously, F*ck the Police

Police dismissed of all charges

+ Dante Servin, an off-duty Chicago police officer who shot and killed 22-year-old Rekia Boyd, was dismissed of all charges including involuntary manslaughter on Monday.

Rekia Boyd

Cook County Judge Dennis Porter made the decision after prosecutors wrapped up their case last week but before defense could even begin theirs. The judge ruled the prosecutors failed to prove the police officer was acting recklessly in order to charge him with involuntary manslaughter. “The absence of any evidence of reckless conduct renders it unnecessary for this court to consider whether the defendant was justified in his actions,” Porter said.

On March 21, 2012, Servin confronted Boyd, her friend Antonio Cross and two others in an alley about a loud gathering happening near his home. Servin claims that Cross pulled a gun on him so Servin shot five times, striking Cross in his hand and Boyd in the back of her head. Police never recovered a weapon from Cross and he testified saying it was a cell phone.

The judge deemed Servin wasn’t acting recklessly when he shot into an unarmed crowd, killing a young black woman, because he was making a conscience decision to protect his own life — the life of a white police officer.

Do you want to know what Servin said to reporters after the verdict? It’s going to make you livid but I’m going to tell you anyway.

“Any reasonable person, any police officer especially would have reacted in the exact same manner that I reacted, and I’m glad to be alive,” Servin said. “I saved my life that night. I’m glad that I’m not a police death statistic.”

Servin wasn’t ever in danger, he was the dangerous one in this situation. He was threatened by black people just for being black. He killed a black woman and got away. He’s been stripped of his police powers but still has a job doing desk duty, while Boyd and her family receive no justice.

Freddie Gray’s death still being investigated

+ An autopsy shows 25-year-old Freddie Gray died from a severe injury to his spinal cord on Sunday after being in a coma for a week. His death is still being investigated by authorities after he sustained his injury while being arrested on April 12. Baltimore police chased Gray when he “fled unprovoked upon noticing police presence.” Gray was arrested on a weapons charge when police say they found a switchblade on him, while Gray’s family attorney says he was carrying a pocket knife. CNN reports Maryland law makes it illegal to “wear or carry a dangerous weapon of any kind concealed on or about the person,” including switchblades.

Freddie Gray

“We know that having a knife is not necessarily a crime. It is not necessarily probable cause to chase someone. So we still have questions,” Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Bake said in a news conference.

Cellphone video show three police officers on top of Gray while he was screaming in pain and then being dragged to a police van. At one point, officers put more restraints on Gray in the van and Gray requested an inhaler and medical attention. There are 30 minutes unaccounted for before an ambulance was called for Gray who was then transported to the University of Maryland Medical Center’s Shock Trauma Center.

“I know that when Mr. Gray was placed inside that van, he was able to talk and he was upset,” Baltimore Deputy Police Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez said at Monday’s news conference. “And when Mr. Gray was taken out of that van, he could not talk and he could not breathe.”

Protestors By Algerina Perna/The Baltimore Sun via AP

Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said the police plan to conclude their investigation by Friday, May 1. Then the investigation will go to the Baltimore State Attorney’s office to decide where charges will be filed. All six arresting officers have been suspended.

Teen charged with assault while defending her family

+ 18-year-old Tania Harris was shot and wounded outside her home by Robbinsdale police on Thursday and was charged with assault for allegedly threatening a woman with a kitchen knife. Family say the police used excessive force when Tania was only trying to defend her family.

Tania’s mother Kim Tolbert wipes away tears while marching to the hospital to see her daughter. By Kyndell Harkness 

Harris’ mother Kim Tolbert said she called police after three people showed up to their apartment to fight her daughter. However according to the criminal complaint, when police arrived, Harris “burst” out of the apartment, chasing a woman and screaming “I’m going to kill you, bitch!” Police officer Thomas Rothfork told Harris to stop and drop the knife but Harris didn’t stop running or drop the weapon so he fired twice, wounding Harris.

On Friday Black Lives Matter Minneapolis held a rally and then marched to North Memorial Medical Center to demand the teen’s family be allowed to visit her. Harris’ parent’s were finally granted access. The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the incident.

This section isn’t any better

+ Ashley Diamond, a transgender woman who has been in a male prison for three years, was denied her request to be moved to a lower-security prison.

+ The Lexington Club, aka The Lex, San Francisco’s last lesbian bar, will be closing at the end of the month with final parties happening this Friday and Saturday.

via Seeds of Love

+ Self-proclaimed queer Chicana Korean Feminist, Catherine Han Montoya was murdered in her Atlanta home during a crime spree last week. She was a prominent LGBT, immigrant rights and AAPI women’s rights activist. Her friends created the Seeds of Love Facebook page to memorialize her and launched a crowd-funding site to raise money for her family and funeral expenses.

+ A group of students at Pennsylvania’s McGuffey High School organized an “anti-gay day” in retaliation of The Day of Silence, an annual GLSEN event to raise awareness about LGBT bullying. The students encouraged others to wear flannel and write “anti-gay” on their hands. The anti-gay students proceeded to physically harass LGBT students in the hallway and hang posters on their lockers. The Advocate reports:

Administrators at the McGuffey School District are investigating the incident. Dr. Erica Kolat, the superintendent, released a statement saying that the school “will follow our Student Code of Conduct, and file legal citations, as warranted. We will resolve to ensure that all children can grow and learn in a safe, supportive environment free from discrimination.”

 A Tiny Ounce of Sunshine

+ Remember Claudettia Love, a gay Louisiana honor student, who was told she couldn’t attend her own prom if she wore a tux but then the school changed their minds? Well, now she gets to go to prom in a super fancy suit and shoes. Sharpe Suiting and NiK Kacy will donate a bespoke suit and fancy footwear to the high school senior. DapperQ reports, “This generous gift is the launch of Sharpe Suiting and NiK Kacy Footwear’s new “Love Fellowship” campaign, which will, on an annual basis, provide a free custom tuxedo and pair of dress shoes to a selected LGBTQ high school honors student.”

You Need Help: Your Girlfriend Says Offensive Stuff and You Aren’t Sure How to Deal

Feature image via Shutterstock.

Welcome to You Need Help! Where you’ve got a problem and yo, we solve it. Or we at least try.

Dearest Autostraddle,

I’ve been dating my (amazing, sexy, opinionated) girlfriend for about six months now. We have a lot in common in terms of values, but there are some major sticking points that I think stem from our respective educational backgrounds and what they mean for our queerness(es). I went to a hippy-dippy liberal arts school where I “came out” by starting to make out with girls on the dance floor one night and no one really asked questions. I also had the benefit of a supportive infrastructure — there were at least three LGBTQ groups on campus at any given time. My honey, on the other hand, went to a super preppy, conservative college and was one of the few gay people on campus when she finally did come out. While I identify fairly closely with the queer community, I don’t think she feels that way (which isn’t necessarily bad!)

Because she didn’t have the same opportunities to be exposed to and learn about queer culture the way I did, she often expresses some opinions I find offensive and ignorant. For example, she finds effeminate gay men annoying and has characterized trans people in reductive ways. When she expresses those opinions, I get offended, though I also try to explain my reaction. However, she maintains that she wants to be able to share those feelings with me and I don’t want to make her shut down. That being said, how do I tell her that some of the things she says (though, granted, she wouldn’t say them in front of anyone else) are just WRONG? I want to be a resource but I don’t want to be offended all the time or get pigeon-holed as the non-feeling educator.

Before I get started, I’m going to clarify that because of the way you frame your letter, I am assuming you and your girlfriend are both cis women, and I’ll be answering this question from that perspective. If I’m wrong, let me know in the comments, and we’ll take it from there.

Sometimes we love people who don’t share our same value systems or knowledge sets. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t love them, but it can mean we need to work hard to make sure we aren’t compromising our own values just to placate them.

To sum up what I got from your letter: You think your girlfriend (I’m going to call her Amanda) is the bee’s knees. She thinks you’re the bomb. Amanda has opinions about trans and queer people that you find offensive, sometimes flat-out wrong. She only shares these opinions with you, but when you speak up and say you take offense, she is dismissive. You don’t want to stop speaking up, but it sounds like you’re concerned about how this will affect your relationship.

There are two things going on here: one is about your relationship with Amanda, and the other is about your desire to be an ally to your queer community. I’m going to address these things separately a little bit, but mostly together because they’re really completely intertwined. Being an ally is about building and maintaining relationships over time, both with people we share identities with, and people we don’t.

First, with regards to your relationship: it sounds like Amanda trusts you, and sees you as someone who can make her feel heard and respected. This is great! But you deserve to be heard and respected, too. It’s important that she be able to confide in you, yes, but there’s a difference between being a confidante and being a carte blanche receptacle for her opinions, especially if they hurt you. That’s not how it works. You actually don’t owe her that.

When it comes to allyship: it’s really important for cis people to educate other cis people about gender and trans issues. I’d go so far as to say it’s our responsibility to do it patiently, clearly and persistently, because it helps create a world in which trans people don’t have to shoulder the entire burden of raising awareness about trans issues. An important way for cis people to be allies to trans people is to be allies even when trans people aren’t in the room. Trust your gut when it tells you that you don’t want to let what Amanda says off the hook.

So now let’s look at how your relationship and your allyship intertwine.

I think it’s interesting that you say Amanda wouldn’t say these things to anyone else. Whether she’s told you this outright or if it’s just something you’ve intuited, I’m not sure. But I think it’s important you ask yourself why you are the only one who hears her say these things. I don’t know what the answer is. You said she doesn’t have strong connections to a queer community, so it’s entirely possible these things just don’t come up with anyone else. But I also wonder if she thinks it’s fine because you give her a free pass when you don’t want to upset her or disrupt your relationship equilibrium.

I hear you in your concern that you don’t want to be pigeonholed as the educator. It can be really hard and exhausting to take on this role for people who you love (or just really really like). But would it help if I told you it’s ok if you don’t transform Amanda overnight? Because it’s not something that can happen instantly. She isn’t going to learn everything you want her to know immediately, or maybe ever. If you want to maintain your relationship with her while also helping her be a better ally or more informed, I think it’s entirely possible, but it’s going to take time, and it’s going to take work, because allyship is about building and maintaining relationships, not about achieving a particular status or getting all the cookies. It’s impossible for her — or for you — to be right every time.

One thing I do want to push back against is your sense that you need to be a “non-feeling” educator. It doesn’t sound like you are educating without feeling. It sounds like you feel this is important to you. But something I’ve noticed is that you’re framing your queerness entirely within the context of your college environment. Though it’s hard to know for sure from your letter, I wonder if this is part of why you haven’t had much success talking with Amanda about this so far. Remember, that academia often (and let’s be real – ESPECIALLY with stuff about identity, gender, and sexuality) utilizes inaccessible language to describe situations that affect people’s lives in really REALLY real ways. As a person who also went to a hippy-dippy liberal arts school, there have definitely been times when I have put my “academic” hat on to explain why someone is being offensive about gender stuff. With people who aren’t super familiar with that vocabulary or context, it’s never been particularly successful. I’ve been much more effective when I’ve put my “empathetic human” hat on to describe why something is offensive or incorrect.

If you’re having trouble parsing out the difference between those hats, I’d recommend you take some time to make a list of all the reasons why it’s important to you (to YOU — not your professors or favorite queer theorists or even your favorite Tumblr-ists) for your girlfriend to be on the same page as you. Do you have close friends or family members who would be hurt by your girlfriends’ opinions? Are there things she says that hurt you personally? See if you can shift from “non-feeling” educator to “feeling” educator. Then when this comes up again, frame your offense in terms of “I statements.” It might be easier for Amanda to connect with what you’re trying to communicate if she sees how it affects you on an emotional level, not just an intellectual one.

Ultimately, the decision to change comes down to her. You can try to shift your strategies based on what I’ve said here, and maybe one of them will make things click for her. But you also have to be ready for the possibility that you just might not be able to get through. In the end, all you can really do is trust yourself, trust what you want from the situation, and trust that you deserve to be heard by your girlfriend.

Send your questions to youneedhelp [at] autostraddle [dot] com or submit a question via the ASK link on autostraddle.tumblr.com. Please keep your questions to around, at most, 100 words. Due to the high volume of questions and feelings, not every question or feeling will be answered or published on Autostraddle. We hope you know that we love you regardless.

Daily Fix: Republicans Didn’t Rise to the Occasion for Equal Pay Day and More News Stories

Order in the Court

+ USA Today finds that the court briefs filed regarding the upcoming SCOTUS ruling both “wacky and profound.” Amicus briefs — the instance in which someone files a “friend of the court” brief, essentially just a letter telling the court why you think they should decide a certain way — sometimes seem pretty wacky in and of themselves, you know?

Through the first week in April, 77 had been tendered in favor of the petitioners, while 49 oppose same-sex marriage, including a group of pastors who predict it will bring “God’s judgment on the nation.”

+ Tristan Broussard is suing First Tower Loan LLC for firing him, apparently due to his trans status and his refusal to wear women’s clothes at work. Represented by several firms, Broussard’s case claims that he was discriminated against under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

This Police and/or Military State

+ After the reveal of a horrifying domestic “black site” in Chicago, to which prisoners would be secretly spirited without access to an attorney or anyone from the outside world knowing where they were, Chicago has been a real flashpoint for our discourse about police violence. The city of Chicago is now required to pay $5.5 million in reparations to victims of police torture in the 70s and 80s. They will also provide “psychological counseling, job placement aid and other services” thanks to a separate ordinance, meant to address a period of time under the purview of former police commander Jon Burge, who was fired from the department in 1993, but this shouldn’t give us the false impression that torture and other unlawful treatment of arrested and incarcerated persons is unique to Burge or his administration.

Chicago and Cook County have already paid about $100 million in settlements and verdicts for lawsuits related to Burge, who was fired from the police department in 1993 and later convicted of lying about the use of police torture in testimony he gave in civil lawsuits. Burge and detectives under his command were accused of forcing confessions from black suspects by using electric shocks delivered with a homemade device, suffocation with plastic covers and mock executions.

+ Freddie Gray, a 27-year-old Baltimore man arrested by police officers and who received serious injuries, is in the hospital in critical condition. It’s not clear what occurred leading up to Gray’s arrest; Baltimore Police Deputy Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez has only said that Gray “fled.” He is in an induced coma with spinal injuries; the officers involved have been put on administrative leave. The incident that led to Gray’s injuries has apparently “at least partly” been captured on video.

+ This week four former employees of American security firm Blackwater Worldwide were sentenced for the deaths of 14 unarmed Iraqis in 2007, with sentences ranging from 30 years to life. One other guard involved in the deaths who testified for the prosecution and plead guilty has not yet been charged.

+ In the latest dispatch from the international war on drugs, the Drug Enforcement Agency is in hot water after revelations that “the agency’s history [of] sexual misconduct… was more extensive and egregious than previously reported.”

What Bodily Autonomy?

+ We talked a week ago about Kansas’ law effectively banning second-trimester abortion; now Oklahoma has joined that terrible, terrible party! Jezebel says “The bill, HB 1721 in the House and SB 95 in the Senate, is virtually identical to Kansas’s law, in that the final version doesn’t use medical terminology, only a deliberately shocking description of the procedure.”

+ Columbia University’s anti-rape activist group, No Red Tape, created a protest art installation that projected phrases like “rape happens here” and “Columbia protects rapists” on the campus library around the same time that prospective students were visiting campus. Some accounts say that school administrators showed up to try to stop the projections and berate student activists; some accounts say those first accounts aren’t true.

Laws of the Land

+ In Nevada, a bill designed to restrict the use of the correct bathrooms by trans students has passed its first assembly vote.

If it became law, AB 375 would define a student’s “sex” as “the biological condition of being male or female as determined at birth based on physical differences or, if necessary, at the chromosal level.” The law would then require that this definition determine which sex-segregated facilities a student could use, or else provide trans students a unisex bathroom or separate stall. AB 375 also proposes limits to Nevada’s sex education programs, restricting the ages of students who can take the courses, who can teach the curriculum, and forbidding “explicit depictions of sexual activity.”

The Assembly Judiciary Committee has passed the bill thanks to the backing of Republicans; the vote now moves on to the full assembly.

+ Did you pay attention to Equal Pay Day? It occurred this April 14th, and is supposed to be a marker of how far into the new year a woman (“a woman,” which of course flattens the distinction between the different pay gaps that different women experience, with women of color and trans women making even less than cis white women) must work to make as much as a man made the previous year (again, “a man,” an obfuscating category, etc). Anyways, this Equal Pay Day, Republicans introduced a new version of the Paycheck Fairness Act, a bill which is remarkable in its seeming lack of any actual legislative measures that would ensure the fairness of paychecks.

The Republican measure is a tepid endorsement of the “concern” women may have about being discriminated against by their bosses. It also contains language stating that pay disparities are acceptable if they are about “merit” or “any factor other than sex,” which, as evidenced by the slippery and subtle sexism on display in the Ellen Pao case, can be a difficult thing to argue against. (The Paycheck Fairness Act makes exceptions for pay differences based on “education, training or experience.”)

+ Attorney General Elizabeth Barrett-Anderson has ordered Guam to begin allowing same-sex marriages. The marriages aren’t rolling quite yet, as it seems like many marriage officials don’t want to perform them, but it’s a step.

+ Revisiting hot topic state Indiana, this week lawmakers attempted to introduce statewide LGBT protections in a variety of forms, and were shut down. Womp womp.

Teacher, Teacher!

+ A few weeks ago we mentioned that world-famous incarcerated person Mumia Abu-Jamal was hospitalized with serious diabetes complications. Third-grade teacher Marylin Zuniga had her class, which is entirely Black and/or Latino and a number of whom have incarcerated relatives, write him get-well letters. Now she’s facing termination from her job. The school system is attempting to distance itself from Zuniga; some local activists don’t want to let them.

Nyle Fort, a local activist who described himself as a close friend of Zuniga’s, said the idea to write the letters actually came from a group of students in her class who were already aware of Abu-Jamal and recent news that he had been hospitalized due to complications from diabetes… “I think it’s really important to realize that black and brown schools have fundamentally different relationships to prison and the people inside of them than in white neighborhoods,” he said.

“The idea that a young person that’s in third grade should not be talking to an inmate fundamentally does not work in our neighborhoods.” …Fort drew a different parallel, citing the favorable academic treatment of explorer Christopher Columbus, which he said spoke to the “racial dynamics at play” in the issue concerning Zuniga.

“The idea that it’s not controversial to teach children about Christopher Columbus, who is an architect of genocide, who is a serial rapist, who is a founder of white supremacy, but they can’t write letters to Mumia, is unbelievably hypocritical,” he said.

+ Some thoughts about California’s approach to public education and how it’s dealing with educational requirements that are having negative outcomes elsewhere, like standardized testing and Common Core. Is this all true and California is the one happy medium between state budget needs and the needs of students? Probably it’s a bit more complicated than that, especially when we consider that student rallies were being organized across the UC school system at least as recently as November, but this contains interesting interview info with the former State Superintendent of Public Instruction anyway.

News Grab Bag, Read All About It

+ A shooting at a North Carolina community college is being investigated as a hate crime, although police have declined to explain “what specific biases were being considered in the hate crime investigation.”

+ Here’s a chart illustrating the fact that speaking generally, younger people are more likely to support same-sex marriage than older people.

+ This week, Hillary Rodham Clinton ate at Chipotle. Because she wants to prove she’s just like us, or because burrito bowls are delicious and affordable? Regardless, Marco Rubio claims to love EDM and Nicki Minaj. Unfortunately his favorite band, Axwell ^ Ingrosso, does not want him to use their music in his campaign. Wonder how he’s feeling about Nicki’s engagement.

+ China had previously jailed five feminist activists for allegedly “provoking trouble;” now, all of them have been freed.

+ The Atlantic has the story on how conversion therapy has largely fallen out of favor even with Christian communities, tracking from conversion therapy’s grim heyday to Alan Chambers’ public repudiation of it and Obama’s recent statement against it. In a notable exception to the Atlantic’s claim, the UK group Core Issues Trust is claiming that the NHS’s moves to ban conversion therapy are in fact discriminatory against gay people who don’t want to be gay.

Five Reasons the Fight for $15 Matters for LGBT People

feature image via Labor Notes

Today across the United States, people are protesting to demand a $15/hour minimum wage. The Fight for $15 began in late 2012, when hundreds of fast food workers walked off the job in New York City. The movement’s call reverberated across the U.S., tying into continuing movements for economic and racial justice.

Protesters stage a die-in outside a McDonalds in New York City to show that economic justice is racial justice via @FastFoodFoward Twitter

Since 2012, the Fight for $15 has involved strikes, job walk-offs and media campaigns. The campaign has grown from fast food workers to incorporate low-wage workers from various fields, and it also intersects with organizing against police brutality.

This year, the March 2 Justice is walking 250 miles from Washington, DC to New York to draw attention to police brutality, and will be stopping in Philadelphia to join with the Fight for 15 rally there today. Fast food workers, retail workers, security guards, adjunct faculty, childcare workers and low wage workers from other sectors will join with them to demand a living wage and the right to enjoy a living wage in a world where poor people of color, especially black Americans, aren’t criminalized for walking down the street.

RAP organizers call for a wage increase outside the Zara flagship store in Manhattan via RAP

We know that queer and trans people represent a huge number of low-wage workers across the U.S and are seriously impacted by not just economic inequality, but economic injustice. While we are often portrayed in the media as wealthy and childless, the reality is that queer and trans people have families (that come in many configurations) and are more likely to be living in poverty than our straight and/or cis counterparts. Queer and trans people, especially queer and trans people of color, are extremely vulnerable to police brutality and abuse, especially when poverty leaves queer and trans people no other options for income except criminalized economies. Raising the minimum wage is a critical piece in a complex puzzle of alleviating economic struggle for queer and trans people.

Here are five reasons why the Fight for $15 is a fight for queer and trans people:

1. LGBT people have higher costs but less income than straight and cis people

KaeLyn broke down the Paying an Unfair Price report, which described how laws that don’t recognize LGBT families and fail to protect LGBT people from discrimination result in an enormous financial burden for LGBT people that cis and straight people don’t have.

The report also detailed extremely low income for trans people, with 28% of trans people making less than $10,000 per year, in comparison to 4% of the overall U.S. population. It also noted that LGBT people of color, and in particular black LGBT people, are more likely to be living in poverty than white LGBTs. Raising the minimum wage would secure higher incomes for many (though not all) LGBT people living in poverty.

2. LGBT women face greater economic security than GBT men and straight and cis women

Last month, a data subset from Paying an Unfair Price illustrated how LGBT women are more heavily impacted by economic insecurity than straight and cis women and GBT men. Audrey described how trans and cis women are less likely to have adequate access to health insurance, family leave, and daycare in facilities that accept their families. Families where two women head the household are more likely to have children than households headed by two men, and they have to deal with the gender pay gap twice over. Partnered or married women are more likely to see reduced income and benefits throughout the course of their lives, which is not something married or partnered men or straight people experience. Raising the minimum wage was listed in the report as one of the ways that these disparities can begin to be addressed.

3. 2/3 of minimum wage workers are women; 22% are women of color

Last year while minimum wage workers called for fair wages, Helen pointed out that two thirds of minimum wage workers are women, and that raising the minimum wage is critical for single mothers and women of color. She wrote:

Twenty-two percent of minimum wage workers are women of color, even though women of color only make up sixteen percent of workers overall. Specifically, the condition of workers in tipped occupations, such as servers in restaurants, is pretty dire given that the federal minimum wage for these positions is $2.13 per hour and nearly three-quarters of workers in these occupations are women.

4. LGBT people of color disproportionately experience economic injustice

The Broken Bargain report by LGBT Map, artfully dissected by Carmen, went much deeper than income inequality to identify why LGBT people of color are disproportionately affected by economic injustice. The study examined barriers LGBT youth of color face, like under-resourced schools, bullying, the school-to-prison pipeline, and barriers to higher education. It also pinpointed institutionalized barriers like inadequate nondiscrimination laws, bias and discrimination in hiring practices and workplaces, background checks, and lack of legal work authorization which make it much more difficult for people of color to find work.

While a higher minimum wage won’t solve all these problems, it would help build a critical foundation to stand on while dismantling the rest, which is why the Fight for $15 takes an intersectional approach, bringing together groups that are fighting to address economic injustice across the board.

5. Low-wage workers are put in impossible situations by their employers

On top of only being guaranteed $7.25 an hour if you work an hourly job in the U.S., minimum wage employers are notorious for implementing systems for their employees which makes their income unreliable and unpredictable. Practices like inflexible scheduling, as Kaitlyn describes, maximize profits for companies while treating their workers like disposable commodities. This can be incredibly difficult or impossible to juggle for parents who need to arrange childcare while they go to work, for people who need to arrange healthcare for themselves or family members, or people who are trying to go to school or do other things to expand their skill set. This disproportionately affects women, who are both more likely to be doing minimum wage work and more likely to be in charge of arranging care for their families.

But remember…

The fight to raise the minimum wage is critical for the economic well-being of LGBT people, but it’s not the only barrier. An end to police brutality, the expansion of welfare benefits, and the decriminalization of drugs and sex work will also be critical to LGBT people getting economic justice. It’s also critical that we address the needs of people with disabilities, many trans and gender non-conforming people, undocumented people and formerly incarcerated people, many of whom can’t find work at all, let alone work at a living wage.

To find out about Fight for $15 actions in your city today or in the future, visit Fight for $15 or follow along on Twitter at #fightfor15.