Category: trans

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TIL: Ashley Altadonna’s Top 30, Part 1

There’s a great post by filmmaker Ashley Altadonna about the things she’s learned as a result of transition. I’m going to do a brief series featuring some of her observations as I think it’s useful for those who are about to transition to read the perspectives of those who just have.

Here are a few examples:

#6 HORMONING

Before I started taking estrogen, I read online from other trans-women about how wonderful it was. Colors seemed brighter, sounds were clearer. It sounded like turning into a vampire in some YA paranormal romance. That was all bulls**t. In reality, my body hair thinned, my fat moved to new locations, I got breasts, and my skin softened…all changes I was hoping for. As an added bonus, what little acne I had at the time cleared up.

However my voiced cracked from speaking in a higher register and there were mood swings, hot flashes and insomnia. One of the most interesting things I noticed about being on estrogen was an increased sense of smell. (Note to guys: That why girls dig dudes with good hygiene habits!)

When I recently went off estrogen for a few months, all those wonderful girl attributes started to reverse themselves. More body hair, acne, my skin became rougher feeling, more mood swings and hot flashes. It was like being a teenage boy puberty all over again complete with an embarrassing overly active libido. I’ve never been so glad to be back on estrogen again.

I love when anyone calls bullshit, but I particularly love the way she shuts down the Technicolor Trans Hormone Dream and then outlines what hormones actually DO.

This next piece I found interesting because it’s not something we hear very often. Instead, trans people are constantly reminded of the risks of hormones (which exist, of course), but that there is a difference between the way you might care for a body you like living in and the lack of care you might have for one you can’t stand… well, DUH, but it’s a point that I’ve never read from a trans woman before.

#8 TRANSITION HAS MADE ME HEALTHIER

When I was ready to begin my hormone replacement therapy I hadn’t been in a doctor’s office in nearly a decade. Now I go at least once a year for my annual check up, though part of that is to keep my HRT prescription. I knew I wanted to take my hormone treatment seriously. I quit socially smoking, and cut back on my drinking due to estrogen’s effect on the liver.

Since going fulltime I’ve also tried taking better care of myself in other ways. I exercise more often and try to eat better. Being female and paying more attention to my appearance, I also take better care of my skin and have tried to improve my posture. I’m not always successful at these things, but I have noticed an overall improvement in my general wellness the past few years. Sometimes it just takes the right motivation.

I’ll feature a few more in upcoming days.

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A Trans Only Workshop with Lynda Barry

What Transpires?

A Trans and GenderQueer Writer’s Workshop with acclaimed author and artist Lynda Barry

It’s for everyone who loves to write or do spoken word or draw or any other medium of expression, and who identifies with some version of trans. The idea isn’t for writing about being trans, but rather, to see what will happen when 15 gendercreative people get together to create from various parts of of our brains, under the amazing guidance of Lynda Barry.

Tuesday, 6-8pm, Nov. 5 and Nov. 12, 2013
at the ImageLab in Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, Madison, WI

The two-session workshop is free of charge.

Applications due October 14th.

For applications or more information: Finn Enke, aenke(at)wisc(dot)edu. Please put “Transgender Writer’s Workshop” in subject heading.

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From All Quarters

It seems some in the leather community have decided trans men aren’t men – again. This was the case years ago, but then, five years ago, the rules were changed to be trans inclusive, & now they’re back to being exclusive of trans men.

They’re even using that sorry old version of cis, “bio male”, which hasn’t been acceptable to use in, oh, I don’t know, a decade?

“For any person who wants to run for International Leather SIR, Leatherboy you must be a bio male in order to run. Even the Transgender Leather Community has an International title now. ILSb used to be bio male only and we will be returning it back to the Drummer days. We are not turning our back on any segment of the community. It is okay for an international title to belong to a gay man. But we welcome everyone to the party as far as the weekend events and so on. As far as the Leather Sir and Leatherboy, it will belong to the gay male community. ICBB will again have no change there because it is a community title that is open to anyone.”

Sad.

Many in the leather community are saddened by this atavistic decision.

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Call for Submissions

Call for Submissions

Transgress Press is publishing an collection of wisdom, Letters For My Sisters, written by and for trans women and co-edited by Andrea James and Deanne Thornton.

The anthology will be published as part of the press’ Letters series and is envisioned as a companion piece inspired by Letters For My Brothers (edited by Megan M. Rohrer and Zander Keig), a collection of wisdom written for/by trans men. For more description of the series (and other titles) go to,www.transgresspress.org.

The editors are interested in letters that are:
• Written to yourself or others at the start of your transition.
• Discussions of why transition was the best choice.
• Things you found out about yourself through transition.
Other relevant topics on transitional wisdom in retrospect will be considered. Just follow these guidelines:
• Letters should be 1,000 words or fewer.
• Be searching and fearless.
• Be honest about your mistakes and heartaches as well as your surprises and joys.
• Consider writing about things you did right as well as things you could have done differently.
• Do not specifically name service providers, good or bad.
• If you include people in your life make sure that they approve (in writing) or use aliases not real names.
• Humor is greatly appreciated, but we are not seeking vulgar or sexually explicit material.
• Include your name and title for your letter. If you do not wish to be identified, we may publish your work under a pen name, but we will require that you verify your identity.

The ideal letter will be about you, but it should be something to which others in the community can relate.

For more information, or to make a submission, please contact:
Deanne Thornton
Email: sister_letters(at)icloud.com
Phone: 620-332-6638

Or check out TS Road Map for more details.

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Love & Shame & Having a Thing for Trans Women

Here’s a great interview with the amazing Laverne Cox and Janet Mock about Mister Cee – who was caught soliciting a trans female – that he loves women, dates women, but occasionally desires fellatio with a “transsexual” – that is, a trans woman.

What’s fascinating is how many people think he’s “just gay” and needs to come out.

Liking fellatio – and he’s unclear if he’s interested in a trans woman blowing him or blowing a woman who still has a penis – doesn’t make someone gay.

Liking men, as a man, makes someone gay (if anything does).

Men who like trans women are straight. Maybe adventurous. Maybe they like penises and women.

They said there is no language for someone who loves trans people, but in fact the term “trans amorous” – “trans am” for short – has been around quite a lot. They’re called trans admirers sometimes, or “transsensual” (which is used more on the FTM end of things).

THAT SAID: plenty of men who date trans women are straight men. Period. End of statement.

Janet Mock talks more about shame and gender policing in her article which is, as per usual, right on.

A very, very long time ago I asked trans admirers to step up.

I’m still waiting.

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A Trans Inclusive Feminism.

It was the principle of the thing.

I’ve been doing this work for more than a decade now, so if you’re indecisive, I’m going to say this: there are no doubt trans women who are jerks, misogynists, and who carry around a fuckton of male privilege. But they are NOT all trans women, and they are not jerks BECAUSE they are trans.

Cis women can be jerks, too, but we’d all rather not have people’s opinions and policies decided based on their behavior.

Anyway. I don’t think of what I do as fighting transphobia. What I think I do is practice an intersectional, trans inclusive feminism. & That is all.

There are many, many ways a woman arrives at “woman”. Trans is just one of many paths.

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Bereft of Butches?

This is a really great piece by a woman who has dated butches and trans men for most of her life, telling the brief story of how she came to understand why the lesbian community isn’t “missing” the butches who choose to transition.

She says:

Most trans men I know came out as lesbians, then claimed a butch identity, and then transitioned. Some of them have realized they never were attracted to women at all and are now gay men — this isn’t as odd as it might sound, if you accept that the lesbian community is the only safe space to explore gender, so it’s where many trans men start their journey.  

Maybe that’s why lesbians feel we’ve lost them: because we believed they were ours.

It is, overall, a great piece of writing, plainly laid out, touching on major objections and criticisms of trans inclusion, but it’s also got a light touch. It’s not an angry piece – if it’s anything, it’s got a tiny note of sad in it – not because of the perceived “loss” of butches, but because so many in the lesbian community don’t yet seem to get it.

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Trans Health Publication Needs Your Help

Jamison Green & Maddie Deutsch have created a document that will be free and shareable with healthcare professonals — but they need to buy the distribution rights from the publisher. They need $2500 to do it, & they’re well on their way, so please do contribute if you can.

Here’s a special appeal from Jamison Green about why they’re raising the money now & not waiting:

We are restricted from distributing the article for one year, and the audience for the journal is pretty specific, but the content of our piece is (we believe) important to many, and we wanted to get it out as quickly as possible, particularly since work on EMR standards is proceeding apace, and we don’t want to be barred from the conversation by virtue of not having a weighty voice. The authors of this article have publicly shared these ideas previously from many other platforms (public lectures, personal consultations, etc.), and through work done by the Center of Excellence for Transgender Health at UCSF. Even the CDC has begun to take up some of the concepts. But the value of being able to show (for example) a hospital administrator a copy of an article in a peer-reviewed journal can often carry the needed weight to make a needed change happen, when the advice from an individual might be ignored or disregarded because it was perceived to be only one voice. We know that the more voices carrying the message, the farther it is likely to get; if we thought we could afford to wait until next April when we will have the right to distribute, we would have waited, and continued to share the information at medical conferences and through other media as we have been doing. But we think we can do better by distributing the article more quickly, and we wanted to engage the wider community in sharing the knowledge, too. Again, I appreciate your help!

You can read more at the GoFundMe site for it, too.