Sophie writes about the manner in which the pandemic has affected her and other trans people. She wonders how bad it might have been for her if the pandemic had hit while she was still in the closet, dressing only once a month for events that would have been canceled by the virus.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Don’t judge a book by its cover, and it’s what’s on the inside that counts. Claire Hall has been the victim of name calling and allegations that she is only concerned with the trappings of womanhood. The glamorous surface of perfect hair and makeup. The meanness didn’t hurt her, it made her realize that she knows who she is and the surface is just one part of her whole self.
Felicia Jeen is a 63-year-old transgender woman born and raised in New York City (NYC). Her entire business career was also experienced in the Big Apple. And as you will learn, for Felicia, if you can make it there (NYC), you can make it anywhere. Today she is the subject of Tell Shelley Anne.
The Covid-19 pandemic has affected our entire society but Dana Bevan focuses on the parts of the transgender community and how the pandemic has affected us. Things that provided relief to dysphoria, such as support group meetings, days long conferences, and simple things like hugs have all been suspended. Will those parts of our transgender culture come back after the pandemic?
Dana Bevan posted six of her 12 Suggested Rules for Transgender Flourishing in her last post. The rules are designed to help boost transgender visibility and promote the existence of trans people as just another part of our society. Today Dana posts the remaining six rules.
Today Claire Hall sends a letter to her ten-year-old-self. Does she tell little Claire to invest in certain stocks or place bets on teams that have won the World Series? No, she just has advice she would have loved to get when she was ten and feeling like she was the only person in the world who had a boy body but knew she was a girl. See what thoughts Claire would send to her young self it was possible.
It’s 1956 and we’re transported to the garment district of New York City where a trans woman works to make a living selling what she’s got in the night time and tries to find a way to become a fashion model. Click to meet the various characters, from hookers to fashion buyers for the chic department stores, as Ramona makes her way toward the glamorous life.
People assume that if one of their friends or family was feeling so bad that they were considering suicide that they would see it and be able to get their friend or family member help. But too often people who are contemplating taking their own life don’t give those around them any clues. Sophie Marie was there at one time. Ready to check out and end it all. Read today’s blog to learn how she came back from the edge.
Star Trek was a big influence on many people who were growing up in the sixties when the original episodes aired. Then it influenced other generations with new adventures on the Enterprise and spin off shows like Deep Space Nine and Voyager, just to name two. Claire Hall was a Trek fan and in one of the episodes of Next Generation she found a character she identified with.
Our new Contributor is Sophie Marie White. In her first blog for TGForum Sophie writes about the stages she went through to finally arrive at acceptance of herself and her gender identity. She outlines five stages and says that they don’t stick to a specific order. They can show up at any point and cause problems.
Julie Slowinski is our Contributor from Chicago. In a normal time she would be writing about all the fun she has in the Windy City expressing her femme side in various venues. From dining out to attending concerts, going to nightclubs and other activities that are the beat she covers for TGForum. In this time of Covid-19 she has been unable to get out and about very much. So this month Julie shares a tale she wrote several years ago. It’s a conversation between a butterfly and a chameleon.
Sophie Lynne joins us today with some musing over the question, are you working on your resume or your obituary? The question comes from a friend of Sophie’s who said “At this point in my life, I am working on my obituary, not my resume. I want to be thought of, and remembered for having the right priorities, few regrets, and helping others.” This prompted Sophie to do some heavy thinking and she shares her conclusion with you in today’s blog.
Before the schools were shut down because of the pandemic our Contributor Christy Lewis went to a high school in her town to speak to the students about transgender issues. She looks at it as mentoring and she did it for an LGBTQ student group of about 30 members. In the course of telling us what she talked about she provides some mentoring to our readers on 10 good rules to follow. Read on to see what she told the LGBTQ+ students.
Our new contributor Christy is back this week with the story of how she slowly, very slowly, made a transition at work. Like many in the transgender community she used Halloween as a way to introduce herself as a feminine person in her workplace. She feels that by taking the introduction of Christy to coworkers and management she was more successful in fitting in with very little, if any, problems.
Today Dr. Dana Bevan explains why there is confusion over the difference between sex and gender. Conflating the two endangers the idea that transgender people exist. More attention needs to be paid to terminology and we demand that people define their terms and define them using objective criteria—things that can be observed, including behavior. We do not need vague notions about “identity” or “dysphoria”. Learn why sex and gender are not interchangeable terms and why they using the wrong terms creates confusion.
Today Chrissy Gann devotes The Butterfly Chronicles to the differences she has found between the time in her life when she was pretending to be a man and what it’s like to now be seen by her friends and co-workers as a woman. For one thing she has to accept mansplaining about things she already understands. And now that they see her as a woman co-workers feel free to comment on her weight. Her therapist says that’s good as they are accepting her gender and treating her within societal norms. Find out what other differences transition has shown Chrissy in the edition of The Butterfly Chronicles.
Sophie Lynne takes a trip to a cemetery to indulge her appreciation for headstones and funereal monuments. There, while walking among the worn away sandstone grave markers, she has some thoughts about the impermanence of the flesh and how even memories carved in stone will over time fade away.
Claire Hall had a higher profile than most who begin transition. She was prominent in county government and before she came out to her colleagues she had concerns that there would be opposition to her gender change. Happily she didn’t face very much negativity when she announced her transition and the ridicule she had been anticipating didn’t occur. Things went well — until the arrival of the COVID019 pandemic. After her county made a decision on mandatory masks the anti-mask crowd descended on her like evil pigeons on someone in a birdseed covered suit. Today she writes about how tough the abuse has been.
There is a tendency by some people to make assumptions about things they really no nothing about. Why some people are transgender is one of those things that many people supply motivations for but really have no clue about. Heck, even we don’t know why we are what we are. In opposition to proclamations of opinion condemning trans people as “freaks” or “prevs” we at TGForum believe answers will be found in science. That’s why we bring you Dana Bevan, she gives you the science.
Over the past century or so various learned individuals have arrived at theories of what makes a man and what makes a woman. To some of these (male) theorists it was apparent that women don’t really exist. Just and example of how over thinking is never a good thing. Today Kristina Leigh explores several of the theories of sexuality and gender that were arrived at years and years ago and influence people’s perceptions of why men are men and women are. . . And of course the existence of transfeminine people totally upsets the theorists. Are you ready? Here is A Psychoanalytic Model of Transgenderality.
New Contributor Chrissy Gann joins us today with her “origin story.” Chrissy grew up in a video tape world where one had to go to a retail establishment and rent a VHS tape in order to view a movie in the privacy of ones home. In her local video store Chrissy ran across Let Me Die A Woman, and Glenn or Glenda? While her usual tastes ran to B movies about alien invaders and mutated monsters something in these two films spoke to her deep inside. That was the beginning of her journey to a feminine lifestyle. Read on for the details.
Our social correspondent Lynda Martini is back with us today. Since no one has a social life now, at least in the real world, she has submitted a blog that reports on her recent gender confirmation surgery. She has some “interesting facts” about what to expect when you have your GCS, and lays them out in nine points.
In this time of masking to protect ourselves and others from a deadly virus Sophie muses on how it was that she had been deploying masks for protection her whole life. The mask of shyness in grade school to avoid the attention of bullies. The mask of a cheerful worker wearing a mandated uniform. The mask of manliness she put on every day before the pressure to take it off became too great. All of Sophie masks shielded her from having to be open and visible to the world.
It’s late and Sophie is trying to get to sleep. Through the thoughts buzzing around in her brain she hears a voice. The voice denies her reality and the conversation is not anywhere close to a delightful session of witty banter. The voice is downright nasty at times. Will Sophie silence that mean voice and get the rest she needs? Read “Insomnia” and find out.
Words. We use them everyday and generally we know what we mean. But too often people use words believing they mean one thing and others who hear those words interpret a completely different meaning. Words like gender identity, sexual identity, identity groups, identity disorders, gender identity development, social identity and more are examples of words that can mean one thing to one group of people and something else to another group. Today Dana Bevan takes you through the history and the different meanings of the word identity.
Today a reader asks Amanita how to handle coming out as transgender to a longtime friend. The friend has made transphobic statements from time to time and the reader is afraid that when they come out they will be rejected. See what Amanita counsels in this edition of Ask Amanita.
