As we celebrate 50 years of Cosmopolitan, we invited three fellow writers, activists and campaigners - @rivergallo, @vicparsons_ and @ajabarber - to sit down with our February/March cover star, @munroebergdorf. Discussing race, gender and equality, they look at how the past 50 years have shaped us and the change that needs to happen in the next 50.
Now, so many young trans people have people they can look up to and they can see themselves in. [They can] think, ‘I may not want to be a Hollywood actress or an activist, but it’s a possibility for me and I can dream as big. I can do whatever I want to do, because they achieved what they wanted to achieve.’
That’s something I’m really proud of – hopefully, somewhere, there’s a young trans girl looking at this cover thinking, ‘I can do it too and who I am is not going to hold me back.’
Asked about what advice she would you give someone who is questioning their gender, she answers that there’s no one way to be trans:
Gravitate towards what you feel, rather than what you feel you should do. You’ll find so much peace that way.
When I began my transition, I felt pressure to assimilate into what society deems to be a woman. I wish someone had just told me, no matter how I dress, how I look, if I’ve got make-up on or if I don’t, I’m still a woman. In every single iteration of my being.
I’m dedicating this to the resilience of the trans community - The community that took me in when I had no hope, and showed me that it’s better to be visible and free, than live in self imposed exile, and that stigma withers when we visibly embrace our truth.
We’ve been pushed down, often even beat up, and faced every kind of coldness through our lives - our resilience keeps us rising to the top. Together we forged thru a 2021 during which the world tried to deny us dignity in healthcare, the right to hold jobs, the right to play sports, perpetuated stigma through comedians and podcasters on the world’s most popular channels, and continued escalating the voices of violence against us. We fought back in a way that shouldn’t have to be a fight: by living our best lives.
This is my answer to a world that lashed out at trans lives in 2021:
You can try to push me to the bottom of the world, and I’ll still find a way to the top. I won’t settle to be pushed into shadows. Aim higher haters…
Next up, LA Blade reports, she will make a second attempt to conquer Mount Denali in Alaska. “That’s going to be next, sometime in summer of 2022.” And then next year: Mount Everest, the last of the seven summits she has targeted, and at 29,050 feet, the tallest.
Let us not forget the transgender people we lost this year.
Many of them were lost to violence, much of it transphobic. Black transgender people are especially exposed. Below find some tributes presented by TransLash Media.
Briana Hamilton, 25-year-old Black transgender woman, Chicago. Remembered by family and friends as an “amazing daughter loved by many”, died via shooting.
Jessi Hart, 42-year-old White transgender woman, Banks. Remembered as a loving mother, cause of death unknown.
Kiér Laprí Kartier, 21-year-old Black transgender woman, Arlington. Remembered by family and friends as an accomplished makeup artist, died via shooting.
Mel Roberts Groves, 25-year-old Black transgender man, Jackson. Remembered with love and care as appreciative of life, died via shooting.
Royal Poetical Starz, a 26-year-old Black transgender woman, Miami Gardens. Remembered by family and friends as the “life of the party”, died via shooting.
Shai Vanderpump, 23-year-old Black transgender woman, Trenton. Remembered with love and care as a “fierce LGBTQ advocate”, died via shooting.
Haven A. Bailey, a 21-year-old White transgender man, died in Chicago, Illinois, on May 24th, 2021, shot by a police officer.
How do you beat transphobes? By showing cis people that trans people are people too, just like them. I believe Amy Scheider has done a lot to humanize trans people in the eyes of cis Americans, just by being who she is.
The history-making moment came after Schneider won five consecutive games and claimed the title of 10-day champion with a total of $380,200. “I’m not going to pretend I didn’t think I could do good, but this has just been so much better than I thought I would do,” she said at the time.
I spent some time at the weekend thinking about some of the incredible trans women I know, and how it might feel for them to move through a world where the public conversation is saturated with and addicted to trans misogyny.
I thought about how these funny, compassionate, talented women have to be all of those things in the face of a drumbeat of transphobia that must drown everything out at times. And about how *I feel trans women create more space, more possibility and more freedom for me.
Just as lesbians like me create more space, more possibility and more freedom for straight women. There is not, and has never been *one way to be a woman, however loudly patriarchy tells us that there is, and then punishes us for non conformity.
So MUCH love and gratitude to my trans sisters, to all my LBTQ+ sisters. We are cracks in a belief system and a power structure that harms all women, and we are cracks that let the light in ❤️.
«The hugely-popular Netflix series has consistently won praise from its loyal LGBT+ fanbase for its wide array of complex, loveable queer characters – and Sex Education‘s commitment to LGBT+ representation is about to get even better.
Writer and comedian Krishna Istha shared a casting call for two new trans characters, Abbi and Kent, on Twitter on Wednesday (17 November) – and fan excitement was palpable.
To make things even better, producers are open to trans actors with no previous experience – meaning Sex Education could help catapult new talent into the industry.»
Advocate reports on a new TV series from Amazon that follows the two-year journey of trans teen Jane Noury through her final year of high school, across the country to Los Angeles for a modeling contest, back home to New Jersey for the pandemic shutdown, and as she heads into her future of college and a confirmation surgery.
Jane says:
I can’t control how people are gonna think about it, even if I want to. Of course I want everyone to love our show. We’re very proud of it. I’m proud of it. My family’s proud of it, everyone who worked on it is proud of it. And we did the best we could with telling our story, and we’re also not preaching. People have every right to feel whatever they want to feel about us. It’s not something we have control over.
CBC reports on a Canadian study of 174 transgender youth across Canada, which finds that 62 percent reports strong parental support, which is great. They still feel a lot of anxiety and depression, though, which is not.
The majority of the trans youth respondents were trans boys or men, and Dr. Margaret Lawson, the paper’s co-principal investigator, argues that this is because of transmisogyny. She believes that trans girls and women are more likely to stay in their assigned gender because of a fear of coming out.
Once these people receive care, their emotional distress is reduced significantly. Lawson says:
“You see these youth and they just come into themselves and they become happy again. They begin talking to their family again … and feeling that they’re being accepted for who they are.”
@RileyFaelan It shrinks as your transition progresses. It may go away entirely, but this doesn’t happen to everybody. People get varying amounts of dysphoria from different aspects of gender, which is why it makes sense to seek your own way of transition, and focus on what most dysphores you.
@QuillaTheHun I have trouble remembering how bad my gender dysphoria used to be. I still get flashes of it sometimes though, especially now during the trans moral panic.
@LGBTQPastor Cis folks need to understand this thread. It’s never a light switch.
@LisaTMullin It dropped a lot transitioning and on HRT. At about a year I just started feeling…good.. I did have genital dysphoria that was still there until my GRS.
@ellen_thalia_n My dysphoria is almost gone. I’m confident enough now. Ofc there are still male features that I’m going to adjust. Step by step.
@Charlotte_Alexx I feel like I have very little dysphoria left, especially compared to where I was a few years ago. It definitely gets better, but I wouldnt say it goes away entirely
@cassesque Mine’s tied to low mood now. It’s usually not there at all. I’m not sure if I call it dysphoria because that’s all I know or if it’s just normal body issues that most people go through.
@cassesque Mine’s tied to low mood now. It’s usually not there at all. I’m not sure if I call it dysphoria because that’s all I know or if it’s just normal body issues that most people go through.
@HyaenaMom It shifts: Nowhere near as bad as I used to be since lower surgery & HRT. As each source of dysphoria is put to rest, the next (in a diminishing list) comes to the fore. Its important to be realistic about transition goals but “realistic” was pessimistic & selling myself short.
@Rattlesire It REALLY depends. The only “dysphoria” I suffer from is my voice. I don’t feel its deep enough, but I’m also not super far along in transitioning, so I’m waiting before I decide on surgical options. I’ve met many however who lapse into it their entire lives.
@CirqueAmy For me, it’s diminished substantially. It used to be utterly debilitating, and now, I don’t feel it much at all for most of the time. It isn’t gone completely, and I don’t expect it will ever be, but it is so much better. The lowest levels of pre-transition dysphoria are higher than nearly any dysphoria I now experience. The rare times that my dysphoria peaks nowadays, I’m still able to function, and I know that it is temporary and that I’ll soon feel better. Transition didn’t solve my problems — just one of them. And it made it so that I can work on solving the rest, instead of having the dysphoria suck all the willpower and energy out of my body and leave me curled up crying on the floor.I hope this helps!
@isomeme I’m transitioning – social done, legal and physical in progress – and dysphoria has reduced markedly. I still have bad days or weeks, but nothing like before I started transitioning.
@K8TBenoit I think after about 20 years being out as trans and on HRT, I’ve gotten used to the settings I have now. No surgeries, but I’m okay with it.I occasionally still have moments where I’m a little jealous of cis folks, but they quickly pass.
@theInmara Mine has not gone away completely. But I am trigender with conflicting dysphorias, so it’s complicated and medical science cannot provide what I need yet (or probably ever). Transition still absolutely saved my life, though.
@NameIsFun2Say Yeah I’m only 8 months in and my dysphoria is significantly less than it was. It’s not gone yet but it’s definitely trending that way
@discount_Ripley Everything just clicks now. There’s some elements of life that are still a little janky, inelegant perhaps, but that’s more because of the environment rather than a feeling within myself.
@Cleofoxx I had really bad dysphoria and I have really bad dysphoria now, but I deal with it better and the strong episodes are less common. I still hate my face and figure but i can at least recognise that it’s mostly just dysphoria. Problem is i also have body dsymorphia lol.
@vote_checkbox Inside of myself I am calm and satisfiedOutside of myself I still dislike mirrors and all the other stuff I “can’t do” yetThe first part makes the second part far less suffocating
@autistictic Changing my name, pronouns, and radically only wearing clothing and accessories that fit my gender identity have made a HUGE dent in my dysphoria already…I KNOW if I can medically transition as well it will be either totally gone or barely any will be left.
@jamieelisefoto3 Like others have said, a low mood can trigger it or if I’m really exhausted .But the amount of time I’m not feeling it is has grown exponentially with my transition timeline.
The Euphoria Song Project (A Transgender Anthem), with Pia Notoriyas
Monika Kowalska asked Pia Notoriyas about what made her write this song, and she answered:
I was getting tired of writing about things that didn’t inspire me, and I have already done before and I remember one day I was in the car and I was like “what if I wrote a song about being transgender” and it was kind of like why the hell have I not done this yet, so I rushed home and started to write and record and that’s how Euphoria was created.
I really wanted to embody the struggles of being transgender and ultimately finding closure and empowerment within the song, and I couldn’t have done it without all the girls that were featured in the music video, it wouldn’t have been such a moment without them all.
