So I might be a little biased, but this looks like it’ll be awesome. Thanks to a FetLife discussion, I and some other folk have decided to make a DIY trans erotica writing circle, and it’s at fuckyeahtranserotica.tumblr.com , so when it’s all set up, start submitting your (non-chasery) trans erotica! Let’s get some trans ladyfolk representation out there!
Editor’s Note: This post was submitted by Evelyn Poor, the artist of Trans Girl Diaries. I personally disagree with the main point (that gender identity should be replaced with the term sexual identity), but I find it valuable to include diverse perspectives. I will respond to this post at some point in the future, when I am no longer swamped to death. Until then, enjoy the first guest post on N&B.
Trigger Warning for ableist language (use of the word ”weak” as a derogatory)–but as should be your general policy on content not written by me, read at your own risk of triggers I didn’t catch.
I’m sure most of you have heard the trope, “sex is between the legs, gender is between the ears” by now, especially if you’re involved in the transness. It’s something that’s spouted whenever the topic of transgenderism is brought up and you have people who are totally confused on what transgenderism is. (more…)
Before anyone gets excited, I’m still on hiatus–I’m hanging out in Colorado Springs while looking for a job/housing in NYC. But Word Salad is a recurring feature I’m thinking of adding, where I’ll be doing a quick hit on a particular word or phrase that’s important to an oppressed group of people (with a focus on trans* women). While being away has absolutely destroyed my pageviews, I’m sure I’ll be back to my active self within a few weeks. Expect to see me slowly rising in activity as I get things figured out–as in, this won’t be my only post for the next few months.
Those who were aware of my situation will be glad to know I am finally in a safe place.
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Those who are not aware of the drawbacks to the phrase Male-to-Female or Female-to-Male should read up. Those phrases and their associated acronyms are problematic, because they infer that one actually changes gender or sex–rather, it is merely the expression of one’s gender or sex that actually changes, not the gender or sex itself, which remains the same. I am as female today as I was the day of my birth–I simply am a trans* female, while a woman with ovaries would be a cis* female. The important thing here is that terminology should be a tool of self-expression–yes, there is in reality a difference between the two reproductive systems I just mentioned, but just as there is a difference between the way I grew up and the way most cis* women grow up, the word I use for myself is still my own self-identification–I (and many other radical trans* folks) choose to use the sexed word that is presumed to “match” my gender identification, because I do not see an incompatibility between my anatomy and my gender identity, and language is a tool for self-expression and I choose to express that I do not think there should be a difference in how I should be treated and how a cis* woman should be treated. Therefore, I choose to describe the difference as it is–the difference between cis* and trans*.
How, then, do we account for transition? Well, it is just as I had said before–it is not a change of sex or gender, but rather, it is a change of how that sex and gender are expressed. So the term for today, ladyfolk, x-folk, and manfolk, is female-to-femme. It is my term for myself that replaces male-to-female, because I am and always have been a trans* female, but I now express myself in a femme way. Of course, this doesn’t work for everyone (nor does it work for me all the time), because there are butch trans ladies, there are CAMAB trans* folks who are not women OR femmes, and so on. But it is a start, a small start, at solving this long-standing linguistic problem.
Hi,
So while I’m on hiatus, I want to at least keep SOME content here, because hey…shit’s going on in the world and people tend to get bored of blogs that look the same for weeks.
The author of A Gay Girl in Damascus has disappeared. [Trigger warning for abduction]
Lori Adorable has been blogging up a storm lately about abuse. [Trigger warning for sexual assault and possibly notions of violence in posts, and for victim blaming in comments]
Hope you enjoy! Expect some more this week…or whenever there’s major news afoot.
Also, as a special treat for y’all, I’m going to get a chance to be a reviewer for at least one, possibly BOTH of Tobi Hill-Meyer’s revolutionary works of trans-liberationist film–Genderfellator (a recent porn parody of a famous anti-trans movie, Gendercator), and/or Doing it Ourselves (a fantastic work of art, a porn movie which is the first of its kind to center entirely on the trans female gaze and trans female sexuality–which has developed some, but not nearly enough, cultural capital in trans spaces). Look forward to these reviews to happen within the month–I’ll do them as soon as I get a chance to watch them with a reviewer’s eye!
http://www.questioningtransphobia.com/?p=3778
Try to sign the petition if you can.
So, in case this hasn’t been noticed, I’ve been taking a brief breather from new posts as I figure out my living situation. It turns out that being marginally housed sucks a whole unfucking bunch. Hey, if anyone in New York City has two bedrooms they’d like to rent out to three folks for less than $1300 a month, maybe you can get me posting a bit more, a bit sooner. Till then, I wanted to kind of outline where I want this blog to go, and how frequently I’ll be making progress towards that.
1. I want to talk about childhood a bit more–both providing myself a safe space to discuss my own childhood, discussing childhood in general, and posting guest posts discussing childhood.
2. I want to start discussing multiplicity. I’m not, in the strictest sense of the word, currently aware of myself being multiple, so this would be from a singlet viewpoint if I were to talk about it all myself. If anybody can give a guest post on the matter, I’d be really grateful.
3. I want to talk about kink. This should be pretty straightforward.
4. I’d like to call out privilege amongst my own, because I think we as a movement tend to do a pretty terrible job of calling out privilege in other trans people and of calling out isms, and I think this harms a lot of my other goals. If you’re a 2nd-waver reading this blog–and I know such people exist, because y’all have subscribed–this is where I’d actually like to specifically invite your input (on an equal terms with everyone else, and I’d appreciate if you attempt to bridge the gap, as I will try myself). Expect a post of this sort either late this week or after Monday of next. I’d like to remind everybody that I do permit dissent and I do permit comments and guest posts that I think are of a problematic nature–however I will edit things to put trigger warnings if I deem it appropriate.
5. I’d like–as mentioned in 4–to continue attempting to bridge what I see as gaps between potentially allied groups of feminists. I don’t give a damn whether this actually fixes anything or not–I’m just tired of seeing people with the same intentions at each other’s throats, when I see at least some merit in the arguments of both sides.
As far as my posting schedule goes, I was trying to get a consistent TWR schedule going, however, the reason I did that no longer really exists, so what I’m going to do instead is actually try to move up to posting 7 days a week, starting with the three I was doing, and moving up as I find the time to do so. Where I stop is where we’ll stay.
Happy readings!
