10 Brutally Honest Tips for SRS

[CN: Depression, Suicide, Pain, Surgery]

This month it will have been one year since I flew to Thailand to receive a vaginoplasty (aka SRS) from Dr. Chettawut. (Which I am affectionately referring to as my vagina-versary.) It is one of the most difficult, rewarding, and life-altering experiences I have ever had. Some obstacles were a complete surprise, but many could have been mitigated or prevented if I had been given a head’s up.

So I feel it’s my duty to try to ensure my fellow trans sisters seeking vaginoplasty don’t make the same mistakes I did. Let’s let our hair down, cut the bullshit, and talk about things that really need to be mentioned but no one else will. Continue reading “10 Brutally Honest Tips for SRS”

10 Brutally Honest Tips for SRS
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Torn Pages

The first diary I bought was pink with flowers and teddy bears on it. It was small enough to fit in my pocket and, most importantly, had a lock and key. I picked it up at the book fair, along with a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Star Wars book, a How-To-Draw Monsters book, and a Roald Dahl cookbook. Throughout the day adults made gentle remarks about how “unusual” my diary was, but I was excited to have a place to write my secrets.

At home I was forced to give the diary to my little sister because, “Boys don’t keep diaries, they keep journals.” I was given a red spiral with no lock and key as a replacement. My sister returned the diary when we were alone, but I never wrote in it. I hid it under my toys, along with a dress I started wearing whenever I could lock myself in my room. I wrote in the red spiral to keep up appearances. Continue reading “Torn Pages”

Torn Pages

Queer Canons and Sapphic Ships

I have a confession to make.

I apply queer theory to literally all the fiction I watch or read. I can’t remember how young I was when I started doing this, but I’m too old to stop it now.

I will create queer canon even if there’s already a token queer character or two. By the time I’m done with a series, nearly everyone is bi or pan or ace or aro or gay, there’s usually at least one or two trans people, and I will have lengthy explanations for different unseen love entanglements and poly arrangements in order to ship two characters who are not officially together on-screen or on-page.

Continue reading “Queer Canons and Sapphic Ships”

Queer Canons and Sapphic Ships

In Defense of Barbie

Attention Mainstream Feminism, I need you all to stop shitting on Barbie right the fuck now.

I used to think I had a complicated relationship with Barbie because I believed I had to if I was going to publicly identify as a feminist.

But you know what? I loved Barbie when I was a little girl! I loved playing Barbies with my little sister. I loved her remote control car that she could actually ride around in. I loved having her go on adventures with my Batman action figures. I loved making her go on dates (and have what I believed was sex) with other Barbies. Even now, I still get excited when I hear about Barbie becoming a computer programmer or a producer or an architect because I know little girls look up to Barbie and imagine themselves as her whenever they play with her.

Continue reading “In Defense of Barbie”

In Defense of Barbie

“You Don’t Look Trans”

Dear Cis Women,

If a trans woman trusts you enough to self-disclose, don’t say “You don’t look trans!” That’s not a compliment, it’s an insult to our trans sisters who apparently don’t meet with your approval.

Actually, we *do* look like trans women! Because we are trans women and this is what we look like. There is nothing wrong about looking like a trans woman unless you believe cis women to be superior. I’m sorry transmisogynist media has given you a very narrow idea of who we are, and I can understand that and try to be patient because it’s something even trans women have to unlearn. But rest assured, we’re just as varied in appearance as you are.

Continue reading ““You Don’t Look Trans””

“You Don’t Look Trans”

The Etiquette of a Butch

One of the fun parts of being a butch lesbian is playing with traditional gender norms and making them our own weird and beautiful brand of expression. As a butch lesbian who is also a trans woman, I thought it might be especially cathartic to take all of the well-intended advice about “how to be a gentleman” and make it queer by replacing all male identifiers with “butch”:

Continue reading “The Etiquette of a Butch”

The Etiquette of a Butch

Dear Brooke Sopelsa: Stop Making Our Movement About Straight People

If there’s one thing I can’t stand more than a cis gay person telling me and other queers to calm down, it’s seeing that cis gay person get national attention on a Huffington Post article for telling other queers to calm down.

The examples Brooke Sopelsa cites as queer activists gone wild are:

Continue reading “Dear Brooke Sopelsa: Stop Making Our Movement About Straight People”

Dear Brooke Sopelsa: Stop Making Our Movement About Straight People

“Welcome to Womanhood”

Dear Cis Women,

When a trans woman is complaining about men, sexual harassment, misogyny, and/or sexism, NEVER reply with, “Welcome to Womanhood”.

First of all, we don’t need welcoming. We’ve always been here, and your entitlement to believe you have the authority to welcome us to womanhood in the first place is a sign that your cissexism is showing.

Continue reading ““Welcome to Womanhood””

“Welcome to Womanhood”

Nuclear Weapon

So the Pope has compared me and all other trans people to nuclear weapons because we have to power to go “against God the Creator”.

Bro, if your god is so weak he can’t even stand up to one of the most oppressed groups of people in the entire world, then you’re god ain’t shit to write home about.

Getting real sick of your bait-n-switch, Francis.


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Nuclear Weapon

Just Like You

Nearly five decades ago, the modern queer rights movement exploded from the grief and anger of the most marginalized members of our community: queer people of color, trans women, sex workers, and other people starved for justice took to the streets. Arrests were resisted, fires were lit, cops were assaulted, and our mothers refused to back down. The revolution had finally come and straights were going to have to put up with our shit for once.

People who weren’t there got inspired. They threw open their closets and forced the world to realize we were far more numerous than previously believed. Slowly it dawned on them that we were not some faceless and malicious boogie man, but their children and their neighbors and their co-workers. We weren’t scary, we were just like them!

As it turned out, only some of us weren’t scary.

Continue reading “Just Like You”

Just Like You