Saturday afternoon, I was driving to pick up a friend on the way to work. We were heading to see the midway ‘in progress’ showing of the high school theatre class that I’m helping to direct and whose final show he, in a few weeks, will be stage managing.
As is my habit when driving to work on Saturday afternoon, I flipped to This American Life. (If you’re not familiar with the show, you really should be. It’s a weekly program that has various documentary-ish stories about everything ranging from haunted houses to the financial crisis. Start by listening to something from this list, and go from there.)
Anyway. I’d heard the promos for this week’s episode. It was about finding that one-in-a-million person, the one who you weren’t sure you’d be able to find. Act One of the episode was about a man going back to China to find a woman he’d met years earlier, and I caught the tail end of the act when I switched to NPR. Act Two started up after the station break, and was totally unexpected: it was about two eight-year-old transgender girls. (The episode is available online here, via This American Life.)
Continue reading 'Tom Girls'»
Finally sat down tonight and put together another clip from Trans Form. Enjoy! (The video is after the jump and, in case you missed it, the first clip is here.)
Continue reading 'Trans Form – Clip Two'»
Trigger warning. (A link explaining what “trigger warning” means.)
Earlier this week, Little Light posted is a dream a lie if it don’t come true / or is it something worse. The post is now behind a password but I did have a chance to read it before it was password protected. The thoughts behind password protecting the post are here, and no, I don’t have the password, and don’t know how to get it. I’m going to write about the post anyway, as best as I can remember. I apologize if any of the details are wrong, but the general gist is accurate.
The post was about someone Little Light knew, a trans woman we’ll call Alice, who suffered a serious injury and was hospitalized. Alice had been on hormones for a few years, and was living full time as a woman. She had not undergone The Surgery, but was happier for living as Alice, as herself. After being injured, Alice ended up partially paralyzed, unable to care for herself, and unable to communicate without extreme effort.
Alice’s doctors decided – despite clear evidence that Alice identified and was presenting as a woman – that forcing medical staff to use ‘she’ around someone with a penis would be too confusing. They instead used ‘he’ and Alice’s former, male, name.
Likewise, Alice’s family decided – despite clear evidence that Alice identified and was presenting and as a woman – to take her off her hormones.
Continue reading 'The stuff of nightmares'»
EDIT: Forgot to put a title to the post! Now corrected.
The advanced high school class at work is going to be in a performance this spring. (Not the class I’m teaching – the class at my full-time job. The class I’m teaching will also be in a performance this spring, but that’s not relevant to this post.) We’re buying costumes for them, but need everyone’s measurements before we can do that.
Since I was in the office during their class, I walked down the hall to ask for the measurements of the one girl who still hadn’t turned her’s in. I handed her a tape measure, but she turned and said, “Aren’t you going to measure me?”
Continue reading 'Do you measure up?'»
Dentist results: two friggin’ cavities.
In a number of ways, I feel like I did well in the genetic lottery. I’m not overly tall or overly short (desires to be shorter for gendered reasons aside), don’t have a horrible metabolism in either directions, like my skin tone, love my hair, and so on.
But for a few things, I drew my cards pretty poorly.
Continue reading 'Stupid genetics'»
There was a recent discussion over at Slashdot about airport scanners. Specifically, the scanners that can show something close to a naked image when used correctly. During the discussion, someone said:
I’m so sick and tired of people saying “if you have nothing to hide why whine?” or “you must have a small penis if you’re so concerned with body scanners”.
It’s just none of their damn business and we’ve given the terrorists EXACTLY what they wanted, mass paranoia and giving up our freedoms for “the war on terrorism”.
To which I replied…
Continue reading 'Airport scanners and trans people'»
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been thinking about surgery. My therapist recommended I start by gathering information – no thoughts at this point about whether or not I actually want surgery – just so I can reduce my own ignorance.
I figured I’d start by asking y’all if you had any links or resources you’d recommend for someone beginning to think about The Surgery. Or, if you’d had The Surgery and are willing to share, what doctor did you use? How was the experience?
I have some links I’ve been finding, and will hopefully post those later this week, but I’d love any recommendations for where to start looking. Thanks!
Recently, a friend of mine mentioned that she was impressed of my ‘out-ness.’ My pride in my trans identity. My willingness to share myself with the world, on this blog and through performance.
It was already kind of an emotional conversation, so it was only a slight surprise to me when tears started down my face, as I replied, “Do you really think I have a choice about being out?”
Continue reading 'On pride, having and lacking'»
My job allows students to take classes for barter, meaning they have to do one hour of work for us for every hour of class time. The work varies – it’s usually filing in the office, but sometimes it’s painting sets, helping clean storage, helping to manage the first day of class, and so on.
We have one barter student, I’ll call him Steve, who is a bit much. He’s really friendly, and very enthusiastic about helping out. He loves taking classes and, without a doubt, is dedicated to doing whatever job is given to him. And yet…
Continue reading 'Hugsent (hug consent)'»
I finally got a Google Voice invite, and set it up on my Droid. I used the ‘keep your old number’ option, which means it only changes my voice mail functions. I don’t have multiple phone lines I need consolidated, so going the ‘new number’ route seemed excessive.
But, even as just the voice mail, it’s great!
Continue reading 'Google Voice(mail) is nifty!'»
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