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Transphobia since the 1970s

modern sculpture of head with a wreath

Janice Raymond’s ‘The Transsexual Empire’. It’s a transphobia classic. We can look at its irrationality and spot its repetition in today’s transphobia. Today’s transphobia isn’t new.

On ‘A + E’ by Ryszard Merey

illustration of two faces pressed together, one with eye open, the other with eye shut, by Ryszard Merey

Book #6 in my Trans Rights Readathon week. Drama club, drawing, dance parties — Ash and Eu are pulled together and apart and together as in an oceanic tide. As queer as you wanted high school to be.

On ‘This Kid Can Fly’ by Aaron Rose Philip

Aaron Rose Philip as a young teen, detail from the cover of her book

Book #5 in my Trans Rights Readathon week. When she was 14, Aaron Rose Philip published the memoir This Kid Can Fly about herself, her family, and growing up with cerebral palsy. Today she’s a model.

On ‘Hall of Waters’ by Camellia-Berry Grass

nude person blowing bubbles underwater, hands clutched to throat

Book #3 in my Trans Rights Readathon week. The book about Excelsior Springs, Missouri is grounded in “collective experiences” and narratives about water. Grass aspires to help other trans writers.

Geena Rocero’s TED talk reveal

detail of book cover of Horse Barbie

‘Our spirits will always expand to fill whatever space we are given,’ she says. She found her own face in the mirror, her own presence, emerging from nothingness.

Shaneel Lal’s fight against conversion therapy

book cover of One of Them

In 2022, powered by young activist Shaneel Lal, Aotearoa New Zealand banned conversion therapy. ‘Stop congratulating me for being brave,’ Lal says. Instead, ‘annihilate the systems that force me to be brave.’

Colombia: 40 years of LGBTQ Pride

Red Somos float truck at Pride parade with a large heart on the truck's grill: LEY INTEGRAL TRANS YA (comprehensive trans law now)

Fundraising for a trans community organizing space in Bogotá. Besides seeking a comprehensive trans law, La Red Comunitaria Trans plans to build a trans house for organizing and support. Fundraising goal: US $100,000.

New dogs, now, in my own poems

holding a paperback of Mars and Her Children by Marge Piercy

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.