Quicklinks: Happy Transgender Day of Visibility!

Happy #tdov! How are you celebrating?

Hey, everyone, btw, a quick poll: are you still using the asterisk in trans*?

I don’t watch soaps, but Heather Hogan thinks Bold and the Beautiful is doing a crappy job on their trans storyline. Straight to blackmail? Really, writers?

When I was a teenager, everyone I knew wanted to be the Clean & Clear girl with the perfect skin. That girl will now be Jazz Jennings!

Are you scared of accidentally misgendering someone by using the wrong pronouns? I know I am — I have been known to mess up occasionally when meeting new people. When you do misgender someone, you will probably feel terrible, and your first instinct might be to tell the person how very awful you feel. But this isn’t about you. Instead, acknowledge your mistake and/or correct yourself, and move on quickly. After all, Q Blog says, “there’s nothing worse than getting misgendered and then having to soothe and care-take the person who just misgendered you.”

Activist Blake Brockington was remembered at memorial services over the weekend. He was eighteen years old.

I know I always talk about it, but have you read Janet Mock’s autobiography yet? DO IT. The book helped me move to a new level in my lifelong process of dismantling the transphobia that I grew up with. Reading a well-written book is the best way I know of how to (kind of almost) walk a mile in someone’s shoes. And Janet Mock has gorgeous shoes.

Finally, look up #tdov on Twitter for an endless scroll of color and activism, anger and hope and pretty people and regular human beings! ❤

The Jenner Files: A Hollywood Surgeon Mansplains ‘What Makes a Woman’

Photo by Joe Bergantine
A Nordstrom mannequin (photo by Joe Bergantine)

The Daily Beast has me fuming with their latest article about Bruce Jenner. But not for the reasons you’d expect.

If you live in the world, you’ve no doubt seen Bruce Jenner’s rumored gender transition in the news. Articles have run the gamut from somewhat respectful (if that’s possible, considering Jenner hasn’t yet made a statement) to downright horrifying.

I don’t want to write about Bruce Jenner. No announcement has been made, so there’s really nothing to talk about. I don’t even want to talk about the media circus that has accompanied the rumors — Jenner has always courted fame as a means to an end, and we already knew how badly the mainstream media can step in it when trying to report on trans issues.

But over the weekend, I happened upon this article from the Daily Beast

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Dear Beautiful Girl

For Leelah

Dear Beautiful Girl,

We love you and we’re thinking of you. So many of us around the world. There are no words. I hope to god there is some sort of consciousness after life so you can feel safe and know that everything is all right for you now. It’s not enough, and it’s not right, but I do believe that the good energy in the world is worth something, and I am sending it your way.

Love,

Queer Girl

Trans Lifeline: 
US: (877) 565-8860
Canada: (877) 330-6366

The Trevor Project:
1-866-488-7386
Chat or text

Quotable: Coming Out Stories

We all have closets. What’s in yours?

Awhile back, I wrote about coming out, and the response I received was really encouraging. A lot of people responded with their own coming out stories in the comments. They wrote about coming out about their ADHD, their miscarriages, their divorces: life events, hardships, or facets of their personalities they had previously kept secret. I was reminded that we all have closets, but the more that we can throw those doors open and be our authentic selves, the happier we’ll be.

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For the Last Time, No One is “Born a Man”

born a man

It’s 2014. It’s Transgender Day of Remembrance. For the last time, can the media please stop telling people they were “born men?”

You know who is “born a man?” This ugly Renaissance baby. He may be small, but I’m pretty sure he’s a tiny adult male.

You know who isn’t “born a man?” A trans woman. If we must insist on using this terrible grammar, she is actually “born a baby.”

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Maura, Full of Grace

Forget Game of Thrones. Jill Soloway’s Transparent is TV in its absolute highest form.

There is this moment in the second episode of Transparent…and this is the moment I fell totally and completely head-over-heels in love with the show: when we see Maura (Jeffrey Tambor) come out to someone in her family for the first time. She’s just returned home in a kaftan and make-up and startles her

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