Secret Lady

This is a spoken word piece about my experiences growing up transmasculine. There are mentions of suicidality, sexual harassment, and rape culture.

When I grow up, I want to be a woman. I know I’ll be one someday. The older ladies told me that being a tomboy is just a phase, so don’t worry about not feeling like a “real girl,” because the girly stuff will come naturally someday. I am waiting for her to arise, the natural woman in me. The one who will throw away my comic books, sweep away my desire to be a boy with a delicately manicured hand, demolish my personality with a perfectly made-up smile. I am waiting to stop existing, to burst into flames and allow a beautiful, secret lady to rise from my ashes, like Jean Grey.

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LGBT Blogging Challenge Day 1

Hey everybody! As I’ve been running out of ideas for what to post lately, I’m turning to the 30-Day LGBT Blogging Challenge. I want to start writing on a regular basis rather than just posting some old pieces and rants I wrote a while ago, like I’ve been doing sometimes lately. I am also interested in trying a more traditional blogging format, rather than just personal rants, to see if that brings in a wider audience.

So here’s the first prompt for the LGBT Blogging Challenge. (I looked for autistic and mental health-related blogging challenges too, but I didn’t find any. Maybe I’ll write some myself.) It says “Day 1,” but I probably won’t be posting these every day. I’ll try to keep it to at least once a week.

Day 1 – Your sexual orientation or gender identity. Be creative in your definition.

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Sometimes I Don’t Know What to Do with Cis People

Last week, I got hit by two shitty “trans people are fakers” jokes within two days, from two different people I care about.

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Monster

Content note: This is a post I wrote a couple of weeks ago about cissexism and transphobia, both external and internalized. If you’re a trans person and you’ve had a particularly bad or dysphoric day, you might wanna skip this one.

Today in my literature class, the professor said we were going to deconstruct race and gender in Frankenstein. A sense of dread settled over me as she wrote “Race” and “Woman” on the board and asked a room of mostly white students what race is. After a very intellectual discussion, she asked the class what woman is. The first response was exactly what I was dreading. A student said, “Being biologically and anatomically female.” Continue reading “Monster”

Transmasculine Gothic

  • You walk into the men’s room. Some cis dude is taking a shit in the only stall. You walk away and come back. He is still there. You eventually give up and use a different bathroom. The next time you return, he is still in the stall. He is always there.

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Things HB2 Has Taught Me

Because this North Carolina resident gets real tired of people sometimes.

For non-NC residents, House Bill 2 is a piece of legislation that struck down all anti-discrimination ordinances for LGBTQ folks in the state and mandated that transgender people have to use the restroom that corresponds with the gender marker on their birth certificate. A more extensive explanation of HB2 is here.

In the wake of HB2, many memes have been circulating which show pictures of muscular, bearded trans men with a caption along the lines of, “Would you want these guys sharing a restroom with your wife/daughter?” The implication is that of course these guys should be allowed to use the men’s restroom, because they look just like any other guy. I’m not a fan of this approach, as you can see below. Continue reading “Things HB2 Has Taught Me”