Decidedly Obscure Human Complaints.

I was so ecsactic when I heard that Laverne Cox would be the first transgender person to grace the cover of TIME Magazine earlier this month. The second I heard about this, I knew that I absolutely had to have a copy. Custom framed, preferably signed by Laverne Cox, prominently displayed on my wall. I imagine myself still having it in my elder years, explaining to youngins what this represented to me as a young transgender person in 2014. As Kat Hache put it: It is validation not only of Laverne Cox’s work, but the work of the entire transgender community.  It is a visible, tangible representation of our existence. It’s a really, really big deal. After not stumbling upon a copy by mid-June, a friend and I started really digging around for it. Baffled, we couldn’t find a single copy anywhere. After finally landing ourselves at a Barnes n Noble, an employee explained that their magazine stock was limited due to a major magazine distributor in the east coast shutting dow...

Dissident Voice published my response to Robert Jensen's article! http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/06/gender-and-sexual-diversity/

I need to learn Swedish. Stat. Swedish School’s Big Lesson Begins With Dropping Personal Pronouns STOCKHOLM — At an ocher-color preschool along a lane in Stockholm’s Old Town, the teachers avoid the pronouns “him” and “her,” instead calling their 115 toddlers simply “friends.” Masculine and feminine references are taboo, often replaced by the pronoun “hen,” an artificial and genderless word that most Swedes avoid but is popular in some gay and feminist circles. Read more >

Thanks for sharing, Natalie! "A German father said that he sometimes wears skirts to support his son, who also prefers to wear skirts and dresses." The Advocate: Dad Wears Dress in Solidarity With Dress-Loving Son >

Look what I found. Neat!

My dad’s Facebook comment about this article : “It’s funny how insecure people are about gender. There was never a question that she was absolutely gorgeous until she publicly announced she was transgender. Then, suddenly she is a freak and unattractive. Face the fact that you are attracted to a beautiful woman who used to be a man. Don’t worry. Your peepee won’t fall off or anything. You won’t be less of a man because she used to be a man. Grow up and get over it children. Trump was absolutely right (as rare as that may be) and this creep is just a nasty person who has issues with losing competitions. Big surprise - didn’t expect anything like that in a beauty pageant.”

Emerging from the depths of finals for a moment to share an article that a fellow trans student and I were interviewed for. It was published last week in our school’s paper. I was also interviewed last year for this student paper, but this time I dragged poor Mikki into the muck with me. Gender Boundaries: Room to Explore at Westminster >

UPDATE: A defense fund has been setup for Dr. Nicola Riley! Charges against my doctor, Nicola Riley, have been DROPPED . The prosecution was unable to find a single reputable expert witness to testify at their conveniently timed anti-choice witch trial. A lot of unfortunate damage has been done - but, this is great news.

Well this explains the increase in the price of my testosterone cypionate. Fortunately I now have in my possession an approximately 6 month supply, but there really is a shortage. Gender Outlaw has been great about investigating this shortage that’s affecting the United States and Canada. From his most recent post : It looks like we’re at the tail end of this shortage, but with shortages becoming more common the following information may be helpful the next time this happens and you’re caught short… Testosterone Shortage Update: ETAs, Alternatives and Causes >

Last week I wrote a blog post about an incident that occurred at a Utah Drivers License Division (DLD) office where a witness stood up for a transgender woman who was mocked, laughed at, and forced to scrub off her makeup before she was allowed to get her photo taken to renew her drivers license. Transgender Education Advocates of Utah (TEA of Utah) hastily became involved. Representatives of TEA met with DLD officials and watched what has been described as a silent and grainy video of the incident. Without consulting either the witness or the victim, TEA began issuing public statements including on-camera interviews with numerous media outlets. To the shock and amazement of many, TEA defended the DLD and discredited both the witness and the victim. “Transgender Education Advocates of Utah” placed themselves front-and-center as representatives of the transgender community. This created a lot of public/community feedback focused around TEA. Not surprisingly, much of this feedbac...

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - February 4, 2011 – The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) today released a comprehensive new report, “Injustice at Every Turn,” revealing the depth of discrimination against transgender and gender non-conforming people in a wide range of areas, including education, health care, employment, and housing. The study, based on the results from the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS), was based on responses from over 6,450 participants. The NTDS is the first large-scale national study of discrimination against transgender and gender non-conforming Americans, and paints a more complete picture than any prior research to date. Study Finds Pervasive Discrimination Against Transgender People  >

5,000 Year Old Transgender Skeleton Discovered  >

Packer says homosexuality second only to murder, denial of holy ghost  > This Boyd K. Packer guy is basically next in line to be the LDS prophet. I most recently mentioned him after he gave a homophobic speech to an audience of millions just two days before 18 year old Alec Henrikson committed suicide on September 30, 2010 here in Utah.

DMV Sits Down With Victim Of Trans-Discrimination, Pledges Improvement … finally today the Drivers License Division sat down with Regina Audette, the witness to the discrimination Amber Anderton, as well as openly gay attorney Chris Wharton and reviewed the footage with them. The victim herself, Regina Audette, tells PRIDEinUtah:  “I want to see the DLD continue their education and understand the respect they need to have for people, so something like this doesn’t ever happen again. It’s more than just education, it’s learning true respect.” She also went on to add, “No matter what, I wake up every day with a smile on my face and I couldn’t care less what any one thinks of me.”

The Utah Pride Center and TransAction, its transgender advocacy program, released a press release this morning concerning the incident at the Utah Drivers License Division where a transgender woman was mocked, laughed at, and forced to scrub off her makeup before she was allowed to get her photo taken to renew her drivers license. From Valerie Larabee, executive director: “We learned of this incident on Thursday, March 24, when the bystander called and asked for advice because she didn’t feel the DMV office staff had been responsive to her initial complaint, … When told by an ally that one of our transgender community members was witnessed being ‘humiliated’ we encouraged the bystander to document her account of the incident and continue to pursue all DLD complaint channels to report the incident and gain additional understanding around what is expected from Utah DLD offices when working with the public, which includes transgender Utahns.” Take note: Encouraged the bystander to ...

Transgender Woman Mocked At Utah DMV, Forced To Scrub Off Makeup  > This is what the woman who was discriminated against wrote to Amber, the witness, just earlier today: hey I just want to thank you for what you did at the DMV for me for them discriminating against me and would like to know the steps you took to file the complaint and would like to know if you can help me get it across that I am still human and would like my voice to be heard if you can help I would really appreciate it thank you so much for everything

My favorite story in the This American Life: Testosterone podcast (which originally aired in 2002) was Griffin Hansbury’s story about his transition. He’s now a psychotherapist in New York. When asked about what he missed the most, he replied: Maybe the close relationships that I had with women. I still have close relationships with the women that I’ve known since before T, but I don’t make close relationships with new female friends. It’s hard to do. There’s a barrier. So I kinda miss, like, being part of a cool bunch of women. I actually like women better than men. It just so happens that I fit in more as a man, ya know, but I think women are really cool. Um, ya know, sisterhood is powerful and all that stuff. And when asked what the biggest thing he’s gained is: Biggest thing I’ve gained… um, you know, it’s just so great when people call me sir, even after seven years. I don’t always hear it, but it still rings a little bell inside my heart. It’s wonderful and I … it’s som...

Earlier this week I received an e-mail from my school asking if some other students and I wouldn't mind being photographed for some promotional brochures for our school. I have never, ever been asked to appear on promotional materials for anything . We were asked to wear colorful clothes and multiple layers. I couldn't help but wonder why I'd been invited to appear in a photo shoot for school promotional materials. Is it my funny floppy gauged ears? My tattoos? Was I chosen as some aesthetically alternative bastion of liberalism? Whatever the reason, I couldn't resist and immediately agreed to it. Images came to my mind of hopping on steps with college kids throwing school books in the air or posing with smiles or skipping or rolling around in bright green grass or... who knows what. Something epic, no doubt. I wore a bright purple shirt and a vest. That particular day was super sunny, but the windchill factor was freezing. Yet, between shoots, we were asked to re...