Today Sophie Lynne writes about the many transgender folks from days gone by who all have a story. A story that Sophie feels needs to be shared with the current generation of transgender people, and the cisgender public. The personal story of not just leaders in the community from past decades but the tales of average trans folks should be cherished and archived for current and future members of the trans community.
A phone call to Sophie’s office at PSU led her to help an alumnus who had spent years identifying as a crossdresser for years but was feeling there was more to it. They were becoming aware that perhap they were transgender and wanted help. Sophie gave them personal counseling and as she did she remembered when she was in need of help.
Sophie Lynne decides to contact a state representative, who she met personally, after she gets an email from the representative all about Juneteenth, and LGBTQ+ rights. Expecting a form letter in response Sophie emails the rep asking what she has done to help transgender people. A few days later she gets the form letter. Therein lies one major problem.
The GOP has a plan they are ready to put into effect as soon as they get a president who will back them and help implement the plan. Sophie Lynne outlines what that means for transgender people and wonders if the LGB segment of LGBTQ will be prepared to fight for trans peoples right to exist, or just continue to celebrate PRIDE while transgender people are GOP targets.
Sophie Lynne graduated from Penn State University in 1989. And she hasn’t gotten over leaving PSU. It’s sometimes called Happy Valley and local myth maintains there is a psychic barrier making it hard to ever leave. That may be true and at some quantum level students get entangled with the place. Even if they can manage to leave after graduation Happy Valley calls them back. Sophie is proof. She went back to do graduate work. She passed the tests to become an ABD (All but her dissertation) and contemplates the approaching end to her life at Penn State.
White Christian Nationalism is the current threat to transgender people and the USA. There. I said it. Yes, this is going to be political. The stakes are too high for otherwise. What is it? Whitehead and Perry (2020) define Christian nationalism as “a cultural framework—a collection of myths, traditions, symbols, narratives, and value systems—that idealizes […]
In January of 2020 the first case of Covid-19 was found on the west coast. The disease was ravaging China and without a pandemic plan here it wasn’t long until it was popping up all around the country. The administration spent way too long trying to minimize the danger, telling the nation that the disease would magically disappear. In the meantime bodies were being stored in makeshift morgues and refrigerated trucks. Sophie recalls 2020 and also recalls who was in charge at that time. The same administration that failed to act soon enough to the pandemic wants to return to power and they have made it clear that one of their major goals is to eliminate transgender people.
Sophie Lynne writes about Magnus Hirschfeld, the gay Jewish man who coined the word “transvestite” and became the first sex researcher in Weimar Germany. After Hitler came to power Hirschfeld’s research was burned by the Brown Shirts. Looking at recent news Sophie fears that history is repeating.
Jennell Jaquays passed away early on Wednesday, January 10. She was 67. She was recovering from Guillain-Barré syndrome. Sophie recalls how she got to know Jennell through the gaming world and how they bonded over common gaming interests.
Sophie lost all vestiges of holiday magic after working in retail for fourteen years, but as the students at PSU go home for the holidays Sophie reminisces on some of the things that sparked holiday magic. She also contemplates her current situation and knows that there are folks who don’t have an easy time. She asks that after reading this post you scroll down and leave a comment.
Today, November 20, is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. Our Contributor Sophie is attending Penn State University and since the students are on break on the twentieth the school honors the Day of Remembrance on November 14th. The text of Sophie’s post is the speech she wrote for the Penn State Transgender Day of Remembrance and delivered on the 14th..
Sophie Lynne went to Penn State University to further her education. In just the last few years she’s been exposed to the hate of the Proud Boys, Nazis, right wing pundits speaking on campus, and others who find progress toward peace and love and diversity in our society to be intolerable. Today Sophie reports on what hate is doing to Happy Valley.
Sophie muses on a bad week made sadder by the loss of one of her mentors who was there to help when Sophie was beginning to find herself.
Sophie Lynne has attended Pennsylvania State University twice. She was present in Happy Valley during the Reagan years but she wasn’t happy. She was holding on to her deep, dark secret. With good reason. Come out as trans back then and there were consequences. Since then there has been more tolerance for LGBTQ people and during her second time at PSU Sophie has seen the new LGBTQ students have many more resources.
We are the sum of our experiences and it’s memory that lets us hold on to all the experiences, good and bad, that we have in the course of a lifetime. When young humans get to be old humans the cliche is that memory fails us. That’s true for some while others remain sharp. Then there are some who can tell you what they had to eat on one day while they were 13-years-old, but can’t remember if they took their medications in the here and now. Sophie Lynne has always had a good memory. Today she writes about it after it fails her with a deadline looming.
Sophie Lynne takes a dive into the world of superhero comics to bring attention to the superheroines who are transgender in one way or another. Some by choice and others by accident. And there are a few gender switching villains as well.
Recent anti-transgender legislation in the Sunshine State has considerably darkened people’s mood. Bills banning gender-affirming care for minors and restricting access to care for adults have been signed into law. One new law allows a parent who disapproves of their child’s gender identity to legally kidnap the child from the parent who accepts the child’s identity. These laws and others passed in red states are all based on lies told for political gain. But the laws have many transgender folks scared.
While she didn’t get up early to watch it, Sophie thought about the coronation of the new king of England and examines the place of pageantry and ritual in our lives. Here college graduation came to mind and sparked this post.
Easter, Passover, and Ramadan all happened at the same time this year. Thinking about the significance of the holidays got Sophie to looking at them and find connections between the holiday rituals and transgender transition.
Some people think that there’s no such thing as transgenderism. Some people conflate drag performers with trans women. Some people respond to lies about the transgender community. Today Sophie Lynne responds to the attacks on a minority that some people want to obliterate.
Just a few days ago a prominent member of the transgender community announced that transition had ruined her. . . his life. Which sparked a million comments on social media about the idea of de-transitioning. Our Sophie Lynne has some comments of her own to add to the subject.
Sophie Lynne wishes everyone a peaceful holiday but wants you to know that the forces aligned against the trans community have already introduced serious anti-transgender bills. One such bill in Texas treats any attempt at helping a transgender child through gender-affirming care as child abuse and activates government forces to stop the “abuse”. See the text of the bill in Sophie’s post.
Sophie Lynne is working on getting a graduate degree at Penn State. That’s a hard lift and studies tend to take up most of one’s time. And the stress is a bigger load than the homework. So Sophie needs to de-stress and she turns to an activity that has worked for her in the past.
In this post Sophie answers the questions she posted last week, ones she asked herself in 2010. Take a look and see if you find yourself asking similar questions in your alone time. Some of Sophie’s answers may be applicable to your situation.
Grad school seems to be demanding Sophie Lynne’s full attention so she steps back to 2010 and looks at the questions she had for herself back then. Give them a read and see if you are asking yourself the same question in 2022.
