Category: Trans

holding a paperback of Mars and Her Children by Marge Piercy

New dogs, now, in my own poems

Rereading ‘Mars and Her Children’ by Marge Piercy. Marge Piercy’s poems in ‘Mars and Her Children’, I decided early on, are what I want to sound like when I wrote a poem. I’ve found my voice.

Read more >
Detail of book cover: Summer Fun

Darned if I can tell you how magic works

But this award-winning novel can: Summer Fun by Jeanne Thornton. How do we create our realities? How are you magic? If you haven’t yet read trans literature, I am giving you sage advice: Trans people’s books are magic.

Read more >
parent snuggling with baby

Making an effort toward equal parenting

Written by a gay man, ‘The Equal Parent’ is about gender-inclusive parenting attitudes. Both men are active parents. The nursery has both of their phone numbers, and ‘if they cannot get hold of the dad they called first, they try the other one.’

Read more >
A person stands at a train window, holding their face in their hands

The ‘undecidability’ of life

Freedom and despair in Will Eaves’ ‘Murmur’, about Alan Turing. The novelist directs our moral scrutiny not at the innocent man but at the state that victimizes him. The state destroys him, politically and existentially.

Read more >
Detail from the cover of Will Sommer's book Trust the Plan showing a black flag with a Q on it.

QAnon fights imaginary cabals

Explained in Will Sommer’s ‘Trust the Plan’. To its followers, QAnon seems to explain the world. It’s also their community. Normal policy can wait until the vampires are vanquished.

Read more >
large black book with spine stamped Holy Bible resting on a lectern

What is a Bible?

You already know, and you already know what a woman is too. We don’t have to keep asking what ‘transgender’ essentially is, nor what ‘woman’ or ‘man’ essentially are. There is no essence. But we know what they are.

Read more >