Category: Trans
Trans kids are found in history, too
Histories of the Transgender Child by Jules Gill-Peterson. Adults should acknowledge that ‘trans childhood is a happy and desired form .’ It’s not a new phenomenon. It’s ‘richly, beautifully historical.’
Did lady pirates button their shirts?
Yes. Art you may have seen to the contrary wasn’t realistic. Just because you’ve seen a naked image of a trans person doesn’t mean trans people walk around naked. Pirates too were motivated to button their shirts.
Liberation projects, art appreciation, and perceptions of the past
From my June 2024 reading list. The bird has flown, but the stone has not yet been thrown. Perhaps in the future it will come to mean something.
Is it about time, bodies, or both?
‘Trans Talmud’ by Max K. Strassfeld. Is this a question about time —what we think we know about the past and future? Or is it about bodies —how we sexually classify them? Or both?
‘Overawed by the marvel’ of trans
A new miniprayerbook. When we sanctify something, it changes. I think Heschel would understand and would like to continue to live and change and cast and reflect light.
When the Nazis criminalized gay men
A story of persecution in ‘The Men with the Pink Triangle’ by Heinz Heger. The Nazis viewed gay people as weakening the gender binary. Gay men could be punished for “lewdness,” including simply hugging each other: prison or death.
Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’, originally K-3, now through Grade 12?
High school teachers in Florida can’t say it. First it was K-3. Now it’s through Grade 12. Teachers can’t mention LGBTQ identity. Why is Ron DeSantis doing it? LGBTQ people did nothing to deserve it.
Supreme Court allows criminalizing trans kids’ healthcare in Idaho
The April 15, 2024 ruling denies injunctive relief. I don’t care about preliminary injunctions per se. I care about trans kids. We have to pay attention to what is happening.
Give trans kids privacy and affirmation
Doing so won’t hurt you. California Assembly passes two bills in 2023. One way not to be anxious about trans people is just to listen to us and respect what we say we need, because what we truly need isn’t scary.
How to reduce your anxiety over the ‘idea’ of trans kids
Look at that ‘idea’, and change your assumptions about it. Or, if you want to spend years feeling anxious that you don’t know how to respond to the existence of trans kids, start by making these bad assumptions.
When I, a trans person, spoke to a bioethicist about consequences
We did not agree, and I was wrong. But I wouldn’t have wanted the state to send me to a mandated mental health counselor nor hand up six months of counseling notes to a bioethicist.
10 problems with the ‘sex assigned at birth’ essay
They’re in what’s said — and not said. This isn’t a cost-benefit calculation. If we really looked at the term ‘sex assigned at birth,’ we might find that the benefits outweigh the costs.