On March 31, throughout the world and across the Internet, people observed the Transgender Day of Visibility (TDoV). I found myself, as I have in previous years, feeling ambivalent about this event. Because honestly? For many trans women, visibility is exactly the problem: it is involuntary, and it leaves us vulnerable to both physical and social violence. We get mocked, … [Read more...]
Afro-Latina: 6 Women Open Up About Being Black and Latina
Editor's Note: This article was originally published by Vibe.com and is republished with permission. “We got a little bit of Black in us!” This is what the Puerto Ricans I grew up around in the South Bronx used to joke. The idea that Blackness was something beyond skin color never made much sense back then. But the older I got, the more I realized how prevalent those African … [Read more...]
How I Lost My Religion — And Temporarily My Empathy as a Judgmental Atheist
The fact that my father never came to mass with the rest of us didn’t bother me as a child. It registered in the same capacity as the fact that he worked night shifts or that Spanish was spoken in my house as often as English — distinctions between my home life and that of my peers, but nothing worth an existential crisis. I was seven or eight when I stood in our garage and … [Read more...]
7 Ways to Support Someone Who is Struggling with Their Gender Identity
Don’t assume you ‘know’ what their authentic gender is. Don’t assume you know what they are going through. Don’t assume anything. Listen. Listen. Listen. Open yourself. Hear. Hear. Hear. Every person’s gender journey is distinctly theirs; there are no cookie-cutter ten steps to success. Who is this person? What matters to them? How do they talk about their gender? … [Read more...]
Creating Community as a Queer, Black Muslim: An Interview with Kaamila Mohamed, Co-founder of Queer Muslims of Boston
A few years after I moved to New England, I decided that I was ready to start searching for queer Muslim community. This wasn’t something that I’d ever done before, but I was at a place in my life where I was feeling a desperate need for a spiritual and religious community where I could (potentially) be my whole self. I wanted to bring all parts of myself into a faith … [Read more...]
Sex and Gender are Actually the Same Thing (But Bear With Me)
This article originally appeared in Androgeneity and is reprinted by permission from the writer. As you read the title, you may be overcome with indignation that this article is going to be a gender-essentialist rant. You’ll be relieved to know that it’s quite the opposite. My intent in writing this is to point out some serious misconceptions perpetuated in ‘trans 101’ … [Read more...]
