In today's author's group, one of the participating authors read a piece about the process of choosing words, and how picking this way of saying things would send your mind down a somewhat different track than if you'd picked this other possible way of expressing the same thought, so that the whole way the story goes ends up taking a different form ( Read more... )

I am neither trans nor cis.

That's been a recurrent theme in my blog posts, along with the sense that my identity often gets erased whenever someone tries to divide the world up into either trans or cis.

Why?

Because I'm definitely not cis, but the mainstream narrative about what it means to be trans does not include people like me ( Read more... )

Everyone need to explore that question on occasion. In my case, I've spent the last 10 years disagreeing with the transgender "party line" that has developed around sex versus gender -- that gender (how one identifies) matters, whereas sex, if it even exists (instead of just being binary reductionistic rhetoric), is unimportant and nobody's ( 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... )

Another brave child steps through a door. Seanan McGuire's "Wayward Children" series revolves around the notion that doors present themselves to children who -- for various reasons -- don't fit in this world, offering them an opportunity to live for awhile in one or another alternative world where the principles and rules of physics and society ( Read more... )

"It's surprising to me that you aren't sure the trans community will accept gender queer people who don't transition", my friend writes in response to something I had posted. "Many such people do identify as trans and are active in the community, particularly in specifically non-binary spaces".

Yeah, let me explain and unpack that a bit.

Early this ( Read more... )

Our local Green Party chapter recently had Cynthia BrianKate, a transgender and intersex activist, as a presenter / guest speaker.

In the weeks before her appearance, she expressed dismay that last fall I had signed a petition favoring "dialog, not expulsion" of the Georgia chapter of the Green Party. Cynthia BrianKate joins many other trans ( Read more... )

How it was, historically, is that one had a genital configuration, and that determined your social role, your gender.

Feminists and trans folks agree: that's restrictive and it stunts and impairs people, so we say NO to that. Your genital configuration shall NOT define your identity, and we shall be free to be, you and me.

So we're on the same ( Read more... )

Watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZXzNyCf4aI

THE PANELISTS

Esther Lemmens -- Esther is the founder of the Fifty Shades of Gender podcast, where she gets curious about all things gender, sex and sexuality, exploring stories from gender-diverse folks with inclusion, acceptance and respect.

https://www.fiftyshadesofgender.com/

---

Ann Menasche -- Ann ( Read more... )

Imagine walking down the hall and encountering this argument:

BOB: I don't know what you folks are going on about. Look, there are two sexes, male and female. If you're female, you're a woman. If you're male, you're a man.

KIM: You're wrong. Sex isn't binary. People aren't just male or female. There are intersex people. That proves that ( Read more... )