Power disparities from Unexamined Privilege

As an Intro: I feel folks need a reminder. Cisgender allies — talk to your peeps about this. Do The Work of allyship. I really want to see communities live out their claims of allyship and “welcoming to trans folks” by listening to us (this essay has good action items). I’m sure us trans folks… Continue reading Power disparities from Unexamined Privilege

Update on the Fight for Trans Healthcare

On Friday, May 2nd, 2018, Governor Reynolds signed HF766 into law. She made the regrettable choice not to use her line item veto to eliminate the amendment designed to discriminate against transgender Iowans. The Amendment, tacked onto a Budget bill last minute, was specifically coded directly into the Iowa Civil Rights Act. This is the… Continue reading Update on the Fight for Trans Healthcare

Fight for Transgender Healthcare in Iowa

Transgender Iowans had a victory in March when the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that the ban on trans-related surgeries for Medicaid and Medicare was unconstitutional. However, this long-fought victory was shortlived. Around Thursday or Friday of last week, Trans Iowans discovered that the Costello Amendment was added to the HF 766 Budget bill at the… Continue reading Fight for Transgender Healthcare in Iowa

Deconstructing the Biases Within

Crossposted to Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/25299584 Deconstructing the biases within Everyone has a bias of which we may or may not be aware. This isn’t to say that everyone is bad — biases are due to socialization by a imperfect and often discriminatory society, where we internalize the racist, sexist, transphobic, homophobic, ableist ideologies of society from… Continue reading Deconstructing the Biases Within

Trans Lives Festival

I haven’t been well for awhile due to a minor surgery, but I was determined to make the Trans Lives Festival that was organized by the First Unitarian Church. I’d been helping with some of the organizing, mostly with getting the word out and encouraging folks to keep at it. Since the end of March… Continue reading Trans Lives Festival

Pronoun Etiquette Guide

I wrote about how to write Trans Characters in a prior post here. A common follow-up question involves pronouns, such as a guide on how to use them, who uses which pronouns, and how to pronounce the gender-neutral ones. In this guide, I will have links to other trans individuals to provide a more nuanced… Continue reading Pronoun Etiquette Guide

Reshaping the Story of Society

The Consequences of Ideas that Dehumanize and Erase Groups of People This article discusses the marketplace of ideas, and how we have allowed a very toxic idea to become normalized within our marketplace of ideas: Bubbles — Both sides http://www.armoxon.com/2017/09/bubbles-10-both-sides.html Read the article as it is wonderfully written. What I write in the following is… Continue reading Reshaping the Story of Society

A Primer on Writing Trans Characters

Introduction A question I’m commonly asked is: how does one write a trans character? I also get asked this question in regards to writing gay, lesbian, or bisexual characters, and/or how to write a person of color. There is a lot of overlap in these questions since a person can have a variety of skin… Continue reading A Primer on Writing Trans Characters

There is an unspoken epidemic

There is an unspoken epidemic in our country. Since January 1, 2015, there has been sixteen trans people, fifteen of them trans women, murdered in the US and one in Canada. Majority were trans women of color. Both race and gender play a factor in the deaths. The media often presents them as a novelty… Continue reading There is an unspoken epidemic