Category: trans

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Max “Sasha” Reinhart

This is the kind of crossdresser story we have all grown to dread, no? College professor crossdresses for sex work.

And yet: I wonder where exactly, as a culture, we’re supposed to put the kind of fantasy role play this person was indulging in. I can not believe ze was doing sex work for the money. I just don’t. Gender is a rough thing to work out when you’re an adult man with adult repsonsibilities, and this line, in particular, keeps glaring at me:

Reinhart is said to be a wonderful teacher and well-liked by students and colleagues.

Because I don’t doubt it, and it points to the human being this person is. Ze made a very bad decision, no doubt. But I want to know the rest of the story, because there is always more story.

My sympathies, Max/Sasha Reinhart. I’m sorry you had no one to run this idea past before you did it, or at least no one to convince you it was a bad, bad call.

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Out as Trans in Academia

Here’s a nice piece by Rachel McKinnon in CHE about being out as trans in the classroom.

But let’s face it: If I don’t say something, there is a great big elephant in the room. My name has been changed, and there are features of my physical appearance that are undergoing change: clothes, hair, and other aspects. As I say, I’m “visibly” trans, for the moment at least, and I don’t want it to be a distraction without an explanation.

I also wanted to inform my students for pedagogical reasons. First, it’s relevant to my business-ethics course, since I’m teaching gender and transgender issues in the business context. I want to be able to draw on my experiences, including policy changes at my university and some local businesses, when I teach those issues.

Second, I think it’s important for students to see successful trans people in professional positions. The media portrayal and general public knowledge of us is terrible. All too often, the only reason to talk about trans people is to make fun of us, or to pity us because of the discrimination, violence, and hardships we encounter.

Of course many have gone before her, including Jennifer Finney Boylan and Miqqi Alicia Gilbert, amonstt (many) others.

 

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New LGBTQ Leadership: South + Midwest

There are certainly organizations (hello, Trans Ohio!) missing from this list, but it’s still good to see a bunch of new names and new projects. I particularly like this one:

Kezia Curtis
Detroit, Michigan

Kezia Curtis wanted to learn more about bikes, but she wasn’t quite expecting to make a community out of it. Her interest took her to Fender Bender, a Detrot-based bicycle and education training program. While the program isn’t exclusively for queer women of color, it has become an important safe space for queer and gender non-conforming cyclists to give a more bicycle-friendly image to the city’s car culture. Curtis became eager about the program after taking classes this year, and is getting ready to co-teach bike mechanics classes to high school students in Detroit this summer.

Have any to add?

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Rheims With Gender

I really am not sure what to think of this project. The idea was to photograph genders, as she did in the 80s, but somewhere along the way she discovered a few people who were genderqueer or trans*.

I love the idea but I also feel a little squeamish about the description of the project.

I think I’d prefer to hear their voices talking about how they live in their bodies and genders, and what they think of both.

 

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A Modest Proposal

A trans guy puts the video of him proposing to his fiancee up on YouTube and the right wing mocks them.

But he wasn’t having it, and has responded with grace and humor and steeliness:

“To Laura Ingraham, a Fox News anchor who expressed dismay at seeing the news, we just want to say, do not worry. We will absolutely invite you to the wedding,” Scout says. As for Fischer, who Scout accidentally referred to as Miss Brianna Fischer, “We will offer you free LGBT cultural competency training.”

What his fiancee said is what drew me to this story.

There are some “people who think we’re mutants and horrible people,” said Margolies, who is executive director of the National LGBT Cancer Network in New York City. “But we’re just regular people struggling to do good in the world.”

This shouldn’t be a very difficult thing to explain, yet I find it is, time after time. The assumption that LGBTQ people – and especially trans people and their partners – are somehow living lives that are intentionally perverse is one that I find even welcoming liberals sometimes express.

We are not trying to be “out there”. We are trying to be happy, like everyone else.

A lot of the time, embracing the idea of being a pervert, or “out there”, is the only thing that keeps you sane, because otherwise, the constant judgment wears you down.

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Katie from Tulsa

Here’s a story from Tulsa about a young trans woman – the first out trans woman we know of who graduated high school transitioned – but I have my misgivings about stories about young trans people. I think it’s hard to judge what it might mean to be this out. I have no doubt Katie is courageous and will give a lot of young trans kids a lot of hope, but I can’t help but be concerned, too.

We had a better idea than most what it might be like to be this out, but even we underestimated how huge it has been.

Still, I’m glad she has such amazing, accepting parents, & have no doubt she will do amazing things.

 

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Green Daniel’s Letter to His Senator

I loved this letter from the father of a trans man to his senator about ENDA and thought you all would, too.

Dear Senator Alexander,

I was on an airplane this afternoon, minutes from landing in Nashville, when my cabin neighbor just happened to utter his first words to me saying, “That’s the one thing I like about real books over E-books.  You have to turn yours off and I can keep reading.”  He went on tell me how interesting his book was (I think he noticed that I was reading John Irving’s new novel, “In One Body” which has gay, bi-sexual, and transgender characters throughout the story – It makes you think from another perspective for a change.). My new pal was reading, “You Are Not So Smart”, which deals with something called confirmation bias (Our brains resist new ideas, instead paying attention only to findings that reinforce our preconceived notions.  That’s what the blurbs say, anyway).

Continue reading “Green Daniel’s Letter to His Senator”

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To Tom Gabel

Here’s an interesting article by CL Minou to Against Me!’s Tom Gabel about what (not) to expect out of transition. I mention it because she recommended by books – thank you, Ms. Minou! – but this part rung true, too:

People will surprise you, for good and for ill. Some you assumed would be accepting will disappoint you. And some of the people you would never think able to accept you will prove themselves greater allies than you could have ever hoped for. An uncle of mine who worked for years in the gay community is estranged from me now, while an aunt of mine who lives in the heart of the American Bible Belt showed me more love and acceptance than any of my other relatives. These things will work themselves out, but not in patterns you can easily predict. Your music is cool and your fans will be there – the ones you really want in any case.

You can check out Against Me! in this clip where they share the stage with none other than Joan Jett for a live cover of The Replacements’ “Androgynous” – kind of like queercorps comes home.

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Trans + Dads

Here are two stories concerning fathers and transness: one, the story of a woman who is only meeting her dad at age 30 after her mother’s death – and after her father abandoned the family when she was still an infant (declared male at birth).

The other is a big mess, to be honest: the story of a woman whose father had a lot of issues, like being an abusive asshole, on top of the trans stuff. For the record, these things don’t have anything to do with each other. While I certainly sympathize at her loss and confusion, the story gets mired in her father’s anger and illegal activities. But I don’t think it’s hard to imagine, either, why a 6’7″ blue collar guy struggling with the need to transition might be a ball of rage. The writing is pretty horrendous as well, but there you go.

More from me later about my own father, who took the trans in our lives with grace and humor. This is my family’s first father’s day without him, and thanks to all of you who remembered that & send me a short note letting me know you were thinking of me.