Back in December, when I reviewed Cyrus Dunham's *A Year Without a Name*, I noted the author's fleeting worry that an ambivalent attitude towards the identity he transitioned to could be seized upon by transphobes as proof that this whole transgender thing is being embraced by people who might get buyer's remorse and reject it all later ( Read more... )

I go on Facebook and encounter an image of an (apparently) male person staring in the mirror, caption says this person is trying on his mom's clothes while she's out; reflection in the mirror shows an (apparently) female person in bra and briefs staring back; thought bubble says "Wow, I look BEAUTIFUL"; caption below says "... and then she knew who ( Read more... )

In my November 16 post (the "Transgender Lack of Awareness" post), I returned to a recurrent theme: that the mainstream transgender message doesn't make me feel included and recognized. Quite the opposite. Even when there's an effort to mention nonbinary trans folks and emphasize that a person's gender is valid regardless of their body, I feel ( Read more... )

This is Transgender Awareness Week, Nov 13-Nov 19, culminating in the Day of Remembrance. Transgender is nowadays defined as follows (courtesy of Wikipedia): "A transgender person is someone whose gender identity differs from that typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth." By that definition, I'm transgender ( Read more... )

My third book, Within the Box, is about a gender-variant person in a rehab facility. And rehabilitation is approached as a type of psychiatric practice, with the facility being run by psychiatrically trained personnel. So the book is also about the clash between a gender-variant person who doesn't think they have something wrong with them, and an ( Read more... )

So imagine that you're having a conversation with a male who identifies as a feminist. He sees patriarchy as a male alliance and his fervent disavowal of patriarchy as a breaking of that alliance. He's not with the men, he's a feminist ( Read more... )

From Within the Box -- my third autobiographical book and current work-in-progress -- this snippet is a stream-of-consciousness monologue ( Read more... )

On a general-purpose, socially-progressive message board, someone posted to ask about the wide array of gender identity terms now in use, citing the available gender choices for one's FaceBook profile:

The list includes these choices: Trans Male, Trans* Male, Trans Man, Trans* Man, Transgender Male, Transgender Man, Transsexual Male, and ( Read more... )

It is important to be aware of one's privileges and to try to maintain some awareness of what life is like for people who don't have them ( Read more... )

Once upon a time there was a culture, and as you might expect, the people in that culture held beliefs about how life was for them ( Read more... )