Category: Trans

Right wing lies about trans suicide
Steven Crowder makes up numbers and unfortunately is on Twitter. A former coworker actively fantasizes that my 21st-century transgender life is more miserable than if I were in a concentration camp.

2 times a trans man’s opinion was dismissed just because he’s trans
One happened to me. One happened to a more prominent trans person. Sure, these are “just” anonymous online comments. But they aim to delegitimize. Try to imagine the ripple effects into the rest of a trans man’s life.

I’m a gender autonomist
The term ‘gender activist’ is used to point at trans people living with dignity and solidarity, capable of saying ‘no thank you’ and daring to shrug at and disagree with someone who doesn’t like them just because they’re trans. ‘Activist’ is used as an insult for someone who believes in autonomy.

Cricket’s Still Alive (a poem)
Out of the gravel pit, up into the light. A poem after Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’. About Kristi Noem and the young dog she brags of shooting. Beautiful trans child, goddamn untrainable dog.

What’s in the 2023 Florida bill about gender transition
The bill is called ‘Treatments for Sex Reassignment’ (SB 254). Stigma and silencing is the real purpose of Don’t Say Gay. Restricting gender transition is another way of making it difficult for certain people to thrive.

‘Don’t Say Gay’ could go national
USAmericans should vote on November 8, 2022. We could end up with a Republican-controlled Congress and a President DeSantis. If we do, the USA could have a national “Don’t Say Gay” law.

Assume humanity, then ask about happiness
Trans people‘s say-so is evidence of our happiness. But no one should ask for evidence that trans people are people. Previously, I used Lydia Polgreen’s opinion as an example, and I identified and extracted these writing tips for you. Please note this key distinction.

No one needs ‘evidence’ that transition improves trans people’s humanity
Let’s distinguish scientific uncertainty from value judgment. Anti-trans prejudice doesn’t justify demanding evidence about trans people’s humanity. When we let go of prejudice, some common ‘questions’ dissolve.

Can an identity be true and not true?
On ‘constitutive tension’ in our concepts. Picking apart someone else’s identity? First ask: Why do you want to? What would be gained? And lost? What happens to your own identity in the process?

Gödel is sure Bach, and trans people are sure their gender
Reflections on the Pulitzer-winning ‘Gödel, Escher, Bach’ (1979). Their objection is an infinite regress. They’re laying a trap. If we needed rules about rules about rules, none of us could ever use language at all.

How do we know who we are?
Do we learn it from a crystal ball—or from our guts? How do others state with certainty that they know who they are? Do they have a crystal ball? Of course, we’re jealous. How can we know ourselves, too?

Do we choose to be who we are?
And what, by the way, is choice? If you can’t snap your fingers to change, how do you change? What do we ask people to do when we ask them to change? Why should anyone change?