You ever notice how large a percent of the social argument is about whether to treat your difference -- the factor setting you apart from the conventional assumptions -- as a verb or as a noun?

I have noun hunger; I wish the way I am to be understood as a thing and not a behavior, an identity not a way that I am acting. I don't want to be an ( Read more... )

There is definitely a personal emotional stake when you write about yourself, about what happened to you, and then make it available to others. It's different from writing fiction. I mean, you can have a significant ego investment in being the author of a work of fiction, and it can leave you vulnerable to dismissive or hostile opinions of ( 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... )

This is an internal-thoughts monologue excerpt from my work-in-progress Within the Box. Since Derek's mind and overall life-competency are being scrutinized throughout this book, there is a lot more focus on his thoughts and feelings than in the prior books ( Read more... )

I am pro-choice for moral reasons. You get one kind of social reality when women can control their reproductive situation, and hence their sexual one as well. You get a vastly different one when they can’t, and I consider the latter to be morally abhorrent ( Read more... )

"Hello", the direct message begins. "I am a senior administrator of the 'Transgender Safe Spaces'* Facebook group. Unfortunately, I need to let you know that your post from yesterday has been reported. Reported AGAIN, I should say. Whenever you post here, I get several reports on it.

"We need to have a conversation. I absolutely do NOT wish ( Read more... )

In the LGBTQIA communities, the political question of choice is a loaded one. What makes it so is the hovering shadow of "Well, since you chose this, you brought all the consequences down upon yourself".

The classic example is sexual orientation. In a world where neither tolerant open-minded attitudes nor civil rights were fully extended to gay ( Read more... )

I'm often oblivious to how other people perceive me. People can be nudging their companions and inviting them to check me out with a nod in my direction. I don't notice.

I don't internalize any observations about how a way of dressing or a way of behaving has generated reactions when other people do them.

I don't mean I don't notice patterns at ( Read more... )

One of the changes that some people have been advocating for since the police killing of George Floyd is to "defund the police". In some quarters, it's certainly a less than popular idea--nervously worried people glance at each other and try to visualize what our world would look like if the police all just packed up and went home. Most of these ( Read more... )

I have been told that people like me, who present gender in atypical ways, are attention whores. "You can just be whoever you are. No one's questioning that", they say, (contradicting my experience, because some people definitely question that). "But by dressing the way you are, you're drawing attention to yourself, so as far as I'm concerned, ( Read more... )