skysquids:

i made this comic after a series of frustrating conversations in which dudes told me to ‘learn to take a joke’ instead of getting upset about transphobia in the media.  i laugh a lot, but i’m not gonna laugh at anything that dehumanizes me.  because its not just a show, its my whole life.  these are just some moments from the last ten years.  i could go on.  but also, yay comics!  :D

Awesomecore comics from a cool lady who lives around the corner from me :)

If you identify as trans* feminine, trans* woman, or MTF, reblog this.

vicoactus:

valeriekeefe:

ananiujitha:

zeroambit:

transwomanifesto:

I just would love to see how many sisters are out there!

gosh this only has less than 500 notes. makes me sad

Or trans* female, trans* womon… sorry the XtY construction bothers me.

Sing along, children!

One of these terms is a degendering construction, one of these terms is incredibly out of date, if you can tell me which term came out of the sixties then why the fuck are you using it at all?

I actually just sang this out loud

Let’s see how many this gets!

Source: transwomanifesto

trashprincesss:

ourcatastrophe:

lilacbootlaces:

jane-potter:

“Sylvia Rivera kicking ass on stage after some radfems & transphobes tried to refuse her the right to speak at the 1973 Christopher Street Liberation Day rally. Said radfems then had their own march in part protesting trans participation in Pride. A precursor to today’s Dyke March.”

Source: thespiritwas

It is women like Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson who started the Stonewall riots and queer liberation. 43 years later, trans women of color, the people who started the movement, are the people maligned and left behind by it.

In Sylvia’s words, “What the FUCK is wrong with you all?”

[[Trigger warning: suicide]]

Sylvia went home that night and attempted suicide. 

Marsha Johnson came home and found her in time to save her life.

Sylvia left the movement after that day and didn’t come back for twenty years.

this is incredible, she is incredible, I highly recommend watching it

but I think the addendum re: the effect of this day on sylvia is really important

so often we valorise decontextualised moments of tough, articulate resistance and rage

and the suffering of the people who embodied them is not acknowledged, it’s uncomfortable, it’s not inspiring, we want them to stay tough and cool and stylish forever

which is particularly terrible when I think about how sylvia felt like that because of women like me — women who are now watching this video and feeling inspired and impressed and maybe a bit pleased with ourselves for finally having watched a speech by the famous and really cool to name-drop sylvia rivera

Always reblog.

(via tal9000)

Source: jane-potter

Fuck You and Fuck Your Fucking Thesis: Why I Will Not Participate in Trans Studies

So I saw this posted recently and was really hesitant to respond to it, but I probably should.  As an openly trans woman (to the point of now having it visibly tattooed on me) in a graduate program starting off my dissertation project on issues in trans health care, so more or less (minus the openly trans and a woman parts) the kind of person this piece is attacking.  First, I want to say that I totally get where this is coming from.  Most research on the trans community is shit, both intellectually and ethically; being a social/theory type researcher, I’m going to focus mainly on that kind of work, rather than clinical literature.  It is conducted almost entirely by cisgender researchers looking to use us as examples of the fluidity or non-existence of gender at best, and of the constant threat of patriarchal reaffirmations of gender essentialism at worst.  Either way, it’s extremely rare to find any work that deals with trans people in any concrete way on their own terms.  Aside from Vivian Namaste’s books and David Valentine’s work on the murky relationships between gay and transgender identification, I really haven’t found any “scholarly” works that have given me anything new to think about with respect to trans issues, especially in comparison to what I’ve learned through various online communities.  Like the author of the linked post says, the research relies upon academics coming into a community they find exotic and theoretically fascinating and, when they’re not actively abusing their subjects (*cough* Anne Lawrence *cough*), taking boatloads of data without providing anything of importance in return, which is hugely fucked up no matter what.

So why am I doing this at all?  I didn’t go into grad school with the idea of working with the trans community — my project has taken shape right alongside my own trans identity since I started down the path of coming out and transitioning a few years into my graduate studies.  To be honest, it was 50-50 whether I would take up something trans-related as my project.  I had/have all sorts of great reasons in my head: being able to be a transgender voice within scholarly circles, getting to learn more about other trans people and how I relate to them (or not), etc.  But really, a lot of it was pure survival.  I wish I could just drop out of my program immediately and do activist work full time, like the author suggests, but I couldn’t/can’t give up my stipend, meager as it may be, or my ridiculously generous trans-inclusive insurance plan — I really doubt there are many trans people with stable incomes and insurance that would.  So being a trans person stuck in academia for the near future, I had to face the odd double bind that comes with being a social researcher who belongs to a minority group.  On the one hand, I could defy expectations, work on a wholly unrelated topic, and be an appropriative outsider trying to speak for some other community, all while suffering identity-based discrimination and looking on as trans-related research continues to get cranked out by cissies.  On the other hand, I could try my damndest to try and be a corrective to all the bullshit, using my personal experiences and interactions to offer perspectives other trans people will find engaging and useful for political action or just for understanding what it means to be trans in this day and age, even if it means getting pigeon-holed or, even worse, reproducing the same patterns of bullshit I hate.  Will I succeed?  Probably not, if only because what passes for scholarship these days is so fucked up, and because it’s raw, Dick-Cheney-level hubris to say my ideas will be worth a damn to anyone.  But it certainly seemed better than not trying.  I’m certainly not doing this for the academic cred.  The likelihood of any work I do getting read and considered by cis scholars is only slightly greater than my chances of landing any kind of decent academic job after my PhD, which has about the same probability of happening as me wanting to be a guy again (it’s also about as appealing *shudder*).

I definitely want to get as many suggestions as possible from as many people as possible about which people would be most important to talk to which issues would be most important to talk about, and how best to conduct my research as productively and non-appropriatively as possible, but I should save discussions about my specific project for other posts.  Right now, though, I want to ask, am I on a fool’s errand? Does it really make all that damn much difference that I’m a trans woman myself, or is that just a way of excusing participating in an inherently fucked up enterprise?  Would an engaged trans woman doing the research actually be a corrective that anybody is actually looking for, or are the sins of the academy too great already?  

Massachusetts transgender rights bill now in effect

gaywrites:

A bill took effect in Massachusetts yesterday that will protect transgender people in the state from discrimination.

Gov. Deval Patrick signed the Transgender Equal Rights Bill into law seven months ago. Now that it has taken effect, trans individuals cannot be discriminated against on the basis of their gender identity. More details from the AP via the SF Gate:

The law adds gender identity to the state’s existing anti-discrimination laws as a protected category. Now, transgender Massachusetts residents will be protected against discrimination from employment, housing, public education as well as credit and lending.

Gender identity will also be added to the protected categories under the state’s hate crimes law.

Attorney General Martha Coakley called the law a “much needed update,” saying it will help ensure that transgender individuals feel secure at home, work and in their communities.

Woo! Go Massachusetts! 

Yay, Massachusetts!  Here’s hoping New York follows in your example and finally passes GENDA!

(via tal9000)

Source: gaywrites