What trans people learn from becoming part of “the sisterhood” or “the boys”

“Getting to talk to women with zero barriers and the full ability to relate to so many extra things was probably one of the nicest parts about transitioning.” (u/Girlmode on reddit)

Given all the transphobic propaganda about trans women never being accepted by cis women, it is good to read stories like the following one by Kthaanid
on reddit:

“MTF here. I pass fairly well a good majority of the time, and something I knew about but never really saw first-hand until my transition was the sisterhood. Women will come up to me and just vibe in dangerous areas. 

I’ve gone to the bathroom while on a bike ride only to come out and find that a couple of girls were watching my bike for me. 

I was recently in a bike accident, and it looks like I have a gnarly black eye (two facial fractures will do that), and nearly every woman I’ve talked to has checked on me, made sure I’m safe, and offered help.”

However, both trans men and trans women report on how implicit sexism and misogyny make people treat them differently. u/significant_digit, a trans man writes:

"I was shocked when I moved to a new job where no one knew me ‘before’ transitioning; they just knew me as male. 

In meetings and conversations about work (I’m in a technical field), people tend to listen to me more than when I was female-presenting. 

And, not only that, they don’t even make as much eye contact or open body language toward women to include them in the conversation; it’s mostly towards the men… 

I’m gonna spend the rest of my career making sure people really listen to the women around me.”

Another comment says a lot about the way the gender binary is upheld:

“I’m a trans dude, and people actually find me funny now. “
(u/kasimirthered)

Buzzfeed has published more, similar, transgender life stories and comments from reddit, which you can read here.

Illustration photo of two women chatting by ferrantraite

Novelist Khaled Hosseini tells the world about how proud he is of his transgender daughter

The Afghan-American novelist Khaled Hosseini (author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns), tweeted about his daughter coming out as transgender.

“I’ve never been prouder of her.,” he wrote. “She has taught our family so much about bravery and truth.”

Over at Instagram he noted: 

“Most of all, I am inspired by Haris’ fearlessness, her courage to share with the world her true self. She has taught me and our family so much about bravery, about truth. About what it means to live authentically. I know this process was painful for her, fraught with grief and anxiety. She is sober to the cruelty trans people are subjected to daily. But she is strong and undaunted.“

In another tweet he added:

“I love my daughter. She is beautiful, wise, brilliant. I will be by her side every step of the way. Our family stands behind her.“

Mother expresses her unconditional love for her transgender daughter

Sebella Anne, transgender woman, shared the following  instagram-post published by her mother. There is support. There is love!

I have a transgender daughter. She is the love of my life, we share a soul, losing her would destroy my heart forever. I would not be able to go on with life without her. She doesn’t even realize how much she means to me. 

I fight the urge to call her every day to ask her if she is okay & offering to whoop anyones behind that made my baby sad. I admire her courage & count myself lucky that my heart understands and accepts her. 

I love her unconditionally. I support her & the rest of us. And wish all of us a beautiful life. I’m proud of your pride.

Janelle Monáe, nonbinary actor, songwriter and author, publishes science fiction book about queer and trans freedom

Janelle Monáe just came out publicly as nonbinary.  She has now published The Memory Librarian, a collection of short stories written together with other authors, all set in the android universe  presented in her EPs and albums.

Monáe presents androids as liberated beings threatening the status quo of a totalitarian society. It is not hard to see how they, their gender fluidity and their  power of imagination helps us understand the liberating role of LGBTQA culture today. 

They also help us understand why both right wing extremists and left wing transphobes do their best to stop them from freeing the world from the tyranny of sexism, racism and conformity.

Many of the characters are queer or nonbinary, including Seshet, who comes to love a trans woman named Alethia.

See also: Queer artist Janelle Monáe Dedicates Grammy Nominations to ‘Trans Brothers and Sisters’

Janelle Monáe’s First Fiction Breaks Open the Literary Space

Tiffany and Bridgette: A Transgender Love Story

CNN Travel presents the wonderful love story between  the transgender woman Tiffany and the cis woman Bridgette.

They met each other in a bus queue in California 35 years ago, when Tiffany still presented as a man. They became friends. They fell in love. And when Tiffany did come out as trans to Bridgette, it did not change Bridgette’s love for Tiffany.

“I think I have gender issues,” Tffany told Bridgette .

The next morning Tiffany  tried to backtrack on what she’d said. But Bridgette gave the perfect response:

“It’s okay, we’ll figure it out. You’re fine. You’re okay. You’re perfect the way you are. We’ll figure it out together.”

Francesca Street from CNN writes: 

“Nobody had ever said that to me before,” recalls Tiffany today. It was everything she’d ever hoped for.

“Because there wasn’t any expectation of the relationship or anything, there was such an openness, there weren’t any consequences – there was just a complete trust of whatever the natural understanding of each other was. And as that relationship grew, that just stayed there,” says Bridgette.

“We clearly always had, I think, the soul mate connection,” says Tiffany.

I know of a lot of stories like this one. Trans women find affirmation, love and respect and give the same back to their partner.

Tiffany and Bridgette got married and have three teenage children today. Bridgette runs her own company. Tiffany works for the California Department of Public Health as the state’s transgender health specialist.

Read the whole story here!

Photos from Tiffany Woods.

9March 31 is Trans Day of Visibility – a day of focus, love and support for trans people and issues. One in which our community actively stands defiant and visible against all of those who would much rather us be neither seen nor heard. There are various events, activities and calls to action led by trans people all with the aim of supporting the community.»

Trans women risk being held back and sent to war in Ukraine

Right now a good transgender friend of mine is at the train station in Lviv in Ukraine seeking a way out of the country. She and her family managed at last to get out of the bombing of Kharkiv. But I fear she is not safe yet. Ukrainian border guards hold back people with an M in their passports, as they are seen as potential recruits.

The photo above is not of my friend. It is from an article over at Vice and the photo is of Zi Faámelu, a a 31-year-old trans woman from Kyiv. 

Faámelu says: 

“Like hundreds of trans people in Ukraine, I am a woman, but I have ‘male’ in my passport and on all my ID, so this is a war within a war. Ukrainian trans people were already fighting for their lives.”

“There are hundreds of us stuck like this, living miserable lives. We need some influence from abroad. We need people to write to their politicians and charities to help us.”

Trans people in Ukraine can obtain legal gender recognition, Vice points out, but human rights groups have called the process “abusive”, as it “violates the rights to privacy and physical integrity.” 

Any person with a male gender marker on their legal documents – aged 18 to 60 – have been banned from leaving the country.

Let me be very clear about this: Vladimir Putin is a Fascist tyrant and the war against Ukraine is a war against humanity, against democracy and against the freedom of us all. The Ukrainian authorities have my full support in their courageous battle against the invaders.

I can also understand the idea that you encourage even non-military people to stay and join the forces fighting the attackers. In desperate times you do desperate things. Still, what worries me is that they continue to use assigned gender as a basis for who are going to fight and who are not, instead of skills and  general fitness.

It is not that transgender women cannot and should not fight per se. The problem is that so many of them are so traumatized already, that invalidating their identity because of an M in the passport and then giving them guns to fight as men may utterly destroy them.

Being held back at the border does not automatically mean that my friend will be sent to the front. But it means that she has to stay in a war zone, separated from her family. That is not good! Moreover, my friend is not fit to fight on the front line and it serves no one to force her to do so. 

What transgender women do in the bathroom exposed!

“Gender critical” anti-trans activists say that allowing trans women to use women’s bathrooms will lead to the end of the world as we know it.

But what are trans women really doing there?

The Norwegian transgender woman Vindstad explains over at twitter:

Since TERF twitter is so obsessed with what trans women do in the bathroom (whether it’s at home or in public) I thought I would share some of my escapades from the bathroom. There is nothing more degenerate than drinking champagne and eating sushi in the bathtub.

Couldn’t agree more! This will definitely cause the end of the world as we know it.