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 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.
Guest Contributor Ayre Kar asks Who Are We? She’s fairly sure she is a woman but there are questions. Is she the result of a genetic dysfunction? She likes women so is she a lesbian?
This month Rabbah Rona Matlow is dealing with a couple of heavy issues and she is sure sure many trans readers will resonate with them. The first involves having PTSD and ASD. The second is planning for the inevitability of aging and the changes it brings.
Every February in the United States, we commemorate Black History Month. We remember the horrible oppression done to those of African descent in this country, and we note the continued oppression that Black people face. We study and hopefully work to remit the horrible generational trauma that Black people live with, along with the myriad […]
Last week we published part 1 of Michelle Roger’s report on her experience with breast implants. She was tired of having to wear breast forms to fill out her bra. While they did get her occasional positive comments it was a hassle that she didn’t want to deal with anymore. After she transitioned to living fulltime as a woman she grew more focused on getting implants. Today we present part two of her quest for her own breasts.
Michelle Rogers was tired of having to wear breast forms to fill out her bra. While they did get her occasional positive comments it was a hassle that she didn’t want to deal with anymore. After she transitioned to living fulltime as a woman she grew more focused on getting implants. Today we present part one of her quest for her own breasts.
I’m writing this on the airplane on the way back from England. Over Christmas, I was at a major Jewish Studies conference in Birmingham UK. With around 2,000 people there, naturally there were quite a few trans people present. At mealtimes or other times when we were chatting, we would compare notes as we got […]
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.
Well, it’s that time of year again. The winter holiday season. Hanukkah started on December 7 this year. The new moon is December 12, and of course the solstice is December 21. Christmas, for those who observe it is December 25 and Kwanza begins December 26. We won’t have a solar/lunar darkness as we did a couple years ago, but it is still a very dark time of year.
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 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.
Every major religion has language of peace and love in its traditions. Sadly many so-called Christians have stopped reading the parts of their holy book that speaks of peace and love. Of treating your neighbor as you wish to be treated and helping those who are in need of help. Instead there are Christians who want God to smite those with whom they disagree. They pray for storms and floods to afflict those they see as enemies while ignoring our shared humanity.
Passing. At times the community can become focussed on passing. And most of us go through the obsession with passing phase. Admittedly, in some areas of the U.S. passing is more important than in other areas. Our Contributor Michelle Rogers lives in one of those not-so tolerant areas. In her blog today she takes a look at herself and grades her performance in the passing game.
Linda continues her friend Sally’s story of Melissa, a part-time T-girl who had balanced a successful career as a male educator with years of going out on the town as a fun-loving female. This time she tells how her life could have unfolded with one little twist in her story.
A recent report from the U.S. Surgeon General warned of significant increases in loneliness. The transgender community has been dealing with loneliness for a considerable amount of time. Dana Bevan looks at the problem and has several suggestions on how lonely trans people can move from lonely to connected.
Amanita contributed to TGForum with an advice column titled Ask Amanita. She is a gender counselor and activist who advocates for the transgender community. Her spouse is a trans woman. This post is about how her wife’s transition, which Amanita fully supported, caused changes in their social standing in their community. How they had to make new friends when the old ones retreated, and how much the discrimination hurts. Share this post with any cisgender allies.
Friday March 31 was Transgender Day of Visibility. This is a day where we work to bring ourselves out and bring justice for those in our community who are being oppressed. Rabbah Rona writes that this year TDOV happened the weekend before Passover begins and there are connections between TDOV and Passover.
Dana Bevan spent years trying to cover up her feminine nature and present a masculine front to the world. With the passing of her wife Dana began a serious look at herself and realized that she needed to be her true self. After transitioning she thought that the door to dating and romantic relationships was closed and locked. Being sexually attracted to women was the way she was and she had no interest in dating men. A light bulb went on when she learned about lesbians. How did visiting lesbian hangouts work out? Read this post by Dana Bevan.
Our Retro Rerun today is from 1998. Diane Hutchison wrote about her battle with gender dysphoria. She describes how she felt when she was presenting herself to the world as a male but feeling feminine longing, and how painful it was to try and hide her true nature from family and friends.
On November 3-5,2022, Elizabeth Marie attended Center Peace “A Place at the Table” conference in Dallas Texas. The conference. As a religious trans woman Elizabeth was happy to find a conference that might help her reconcile her faith with her feelings of womanhood. After she arrived she found that it wasn’t just the panels and seminars on religion and transgender issues. It was the wonderful people who were attending. Just meeting others who follow the teachings of Jesus but don’t confirm to what most religions expect was wonderful. She reports on the conference and offers other resources for those like her.
Kandi Robbins spent many years in the closet using many strategies to cope with the stress of hiding her feminine side. Work and being a good husband and father took up a lot of time. Time that she could push aside the desire that came from deep inside. After she came out people have asked her how she coped with the stress. She tells you in today’s post.
This article explores some of the same issues that Michelle discussed in an earlier article about being alone as a transgender person. However, while this piece has some personal insights, it is more of a general look at a similar but distinct situation for the overall transgender community. That makes it worth a separate article.
Today Christy Lewis likens her existence before she transitioned to having double vision. With the strain of living in two genders and making sure no one she knew as one gender never met her when she was presenting as a gender they were unaware of no wonder things were blurry.
Rabbah Rona Matlow recently submitted a scholarly paper about generational trauma in the Book of Genesis, in the Hebrew Bible. She has found evidence that the trauma experienced by previous generations is passed down to children and grandchildren of those who experienced the original pain. Not only does she find it in the Book of Genesis but in members of the transgender community.
