Trans/Genderqueer/Agender/Questioning Thread

Yeah, this is completely awful. There's some followup at the Advocate(http://www.advocate.com/transgender/2015/07/20/black-trans-woman-profiled-sex-worker-gains-online-following-may-remain-jaile) and some other relevant points made here (though without direct reference to Meagan Taylor): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chase-strangio/why-bail-reform-should-be-an-lgbt-movement-priority_b_7739166.html

McCarthy and Krum decided the best approach for Taylor’s comfort and for corrections officers was a female officer doing the top part and a male doing the bottom.

Thankfully, Taylor's now been released, though obviously the broader problems of anti-Black and transphobic profiling remain: http://transgenderlawcenter.org/archives/11786

Hey everybody, just bumping this thread. I feel bad that I have a pretty unfortunately aggressive DN in the OP... Maybe some wonderful mod can change that somehow?

Ugh, being transgendered in jail is a nightmare, or pretty much any interaction with law enforcement. Obvious she was arrested because of it, it seems like her probation violation is generally not an offense people get arrested for. I'm glad she was able to raise some money for her legal defense tho.

Damn, the only slightly positive thing wrt to trans & cops/prison is Chelsea Manning being allowed to transition, but she'll still be in prison for like 29 more years. :/

Something I wanted to say on the other thread: I can't relate to people who say they have no inner sense of gender or never thinking about their gender presentations.

I feel like this is because they've never had to because they don't feel any discomfort or anything else about it. Seems like the same thing as people who say "well, I don't FEEL heterosexual."

They don't understand how gender is performative because they've never had problems with their role.

Yeah, there's a good discussion of cis embodiment in terms of this in Serano's Whipping Girl.

Though, obviously, cis ppl can also have complex ways of thinking about their gender....

Though she's not writing directly about gender, I like the way Sara Ahmed discusses the relationship between normativity and comfort (http://feministkilljoys.com/2014/02/03/a-sinking-feeling/):

It is important to consider how heterosexuality functions powerfully not simply as a series of norms and ideals, but also through emotions that shape bodies as well as worlds: hetero/norms are investments, which are ‘taken on’ and ‘taken in’ by subjects. It is no accident that compulsory heterosexuality works powerfully in the most casual modes of conversation: one asks, “do you have a boyfriend?”(to a girl), or one asks, “do you have a girlfriend” (to a boy). [...] No matter how ‘out’ you may be, how (un)comfortably queer you may feel, those moments of interpellation get repeated over time, and can be experienced as a bodily injury; moments which position queer subjects as failed in their failure to live up to the “hey you too” of heterosexual self-narration. The everydayness of compulsory heterosexuality is also its affectiveness, wrapped up as it is with moments of ceremony (birth, marriage, death) that bind families together, and with the ongoing investment in the sentimentality of friendship and romance. Of course, such a sentimentality is deeply embedded with public as well as private culture; stories of heterosexual romance proliferate as a matter of human interest. As Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner argue, “National heterosexuality is the mechanism by which a core national culture can be imagined as a sanitised space of sentimental feeling".
We can consider the sanitised space as a comfort zone. Normativity is comfortable for those who can inhabit it. The word “comfort” suggests well-being and satisfaction, but it also suggests an ease and an easiness. To follow the rules of heterosexuality is to be at ease in a world that reflects back the couple form one inhabits as an ideal. Of course, one can be made to feel uneasy by one’s inhabitance of an ideal. One can be made uncomfortable by one’s own comforts. To see heterosexuality as an ideal that one might or might not follow – or to be uncomfortable by the privileges one is given by inhabiting a heterosexual world – is a less comforting form of comfort. But comfort it remains and comfort is very hard to notice when one experiences it.

a lot to think about and digest in this really excellent seán faye piece on trans identities and authenticity

http://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2293-to-be-real-on-trans-aesthetics-and-authenticity-by-sean-faye

http://www.transequality.org/issues/resources/voting-while-trans-preparing-voter-id-laws

^^^
Useful to have out there

what do you do when your agender friend assumes a name that is based on a questionable/kinda racist joke e.g. the japanese l-r thing

like do I call them out on it?

I would, yeah. Is there any way that it's not actually a joke in that sense but an acceptable variant spelling? Still, if they were my friend I would definitely talk to them about it.

like do I call them out on it?

― qop (crüt)

definitely. marginalized groups need to have respect for other marginalized groups.

Watching The Trans List. It's nice to see a celebration of so many varied voices that gives a narrative to who people are.

oh i should hang out in this thread more

although that morbs bullshit upthread certainly makes me not want to

what are you feeling lately?

idk i'm pretty much in the same spot i've always been, just sort of navigating an ambiguous queer identity the best i can, just while wearing more makeup and dresses

I envy guys who can wear makeup -- I write it w/out snark. I'm too self-conscious.

Came out to my best friend today and his wife last week (also a really close friend, just moved in with them), first non-therapists I've talked to about it. Terrifying but a very positive experience. Guess I'm coming out here too, I'm a trans woman, hey everybody.

Hi

I've been listening to a podcast called "how to be a girl", from a mother raising her trans daughter. It's really really good,really enlightening but also heartbreaking.

hi en i see kay!

Hi, en i see kay; congratulations on being able to share yr identity with yr friends! That is one part of all this that does get easier over time, I think, but it helps to start with people you trust to be accepting.

suuuuup

hey everybody

(waves back) hey!

Thanks! It's been quite the whirlwind. I've been wrestling with it for a long time, thought I was just a girly art fella who did some crossdressing in high school and college, figured it was just art school genderbending, then I got to 30 and it never went away.

I'd been in this nebulous place for about three years where I spent a lot of time looking at transition timelines, secretly shaving my legs, cursing my facial hair (though I grew it out once and kind of liked messing with it in a Cronenberg body horror way) but thought I might not be trans *enough*, which I now know is a very common experience.

Then the election happened and I realized that I needed to deal with it head on and asap, helped along by a fucking amazing therapist (if anyone reading this is in Chicago and has the slightest bit of queerness to them, I can't recommend the Center on Halsted enough, such a beautiful place.) Now I've got an appointment with an informed consent doc who I'm hoping will prescribe and write me an "appropriate treatment" letter so I can get a passport application in under the wire (though I'm not getting my hopes up too much.)

I'm torn between being furious that these awful bigots have made me rush things like this and thankful for the push. I don't know how long I might have kept pretending. (Okay, not torn, mostly furious, especially when I think about how hard it's going to be for other people, and how Pence thinks the gov't should pay to "convert" me.)

Figuring out my name is going to be hard, I dislike every femme variant of Nick (no offense to Nikkis and Nicoles, it's just personal baggage from being what I thought at the time was misgendered and the bone-chilling fear that accompanied it) but would really rather not make a drastic phoneme shift.

Soz 4 blog post, just feels so good to get it out of my head after so long.

<3

congrats en, sorry about America/people

Nice to meetcha!

i'm sorry if i've perpetrated any bullshit. i'm not a hater.

:)

<3 en

*high five*

godspeed en i

En that is awesome!

I'm glad you have a good therapist and access to healthcare, en; Chicago seems like it has better trans resources and a larger community than almost any other midwestern city. On naming, I will say that it's easier to get used to a phoneme shift than you might think, but I hope you can find something that you're comfortable with--if you have a few options in mind, you might try having yr therapist or a friend try out different names with you so you can tell what feels right. I'm sorry yr catalyst had to be so traumatic (and ominous for people like us), but I hope you can continue to find supportive people around you.

omg welcome, new people! congrats all around. <3

(this is rev btw)

also, I kind of drifted away from this thread (and ilx in general) but I started HRT last september and have been publicly identifying as a trans woman since about that time. things are going really well for me and most of the time I've a lot less miserable than I was before. it's been an amazing process.

I'm going to avoid doing too much raving about how amazing estrogen is for now but I might later.

awesome to hear things going well rev :)

rev <3

love you, rev

also en i am v psyched about what's happening in your life, as much as the environment that pushed you toward making these decisions is awful. i felt similarly motivated after the election though i had the simultaneously feeling of "oh i think i might need to stop doing this (doing this = being...myself?) in order to survive"

<3 Really glad you're in a good place these days, rev. Estrogen's effects feel glacially slow in arriving at times, but they've been massively helpful to me in terms of emotional stability. I'm happy that it's been a good process for you too.

Omg rev I knew there was a reason I felt a bit of a kinship with you when I was lurking in old ilx days! Congrats!

And thanks to everyone for well wishes, I'm definitely in the baby trans stage where any affirmation means a ton, so it's especially appreciated.