This article originally appeared on Everyday Feminism under the title "These 25 Examples of Male Privilege from a Trans Guy's Perspective Really Prove the Point" and is reprinted by permission. Quite a bit changed for me over the first couple of years I started testosterone. My health and mental well-being improved, my "happy button" grew over an inch in length, my natural musk … [Read more...]
5 Ways Speculative Fiction Fails to Represent Our Future and Why It’s Time To Fight Back
We are not being represented, even in a genre that lends itself to the anarchic. In the sharp, fast-paced new world of special effects, we seem capable of imagining and imaging the most fantastical ideas. Superheroes, dragons, clones, aliens, zombies, apocalypse -- all of these are possible in our media. We as a species, and especially within the far-reaching … [Read more...]
How Can We Make Our Everyday Language More Gender-Inclusive?
The titles we so commonly use to address our loved ones all refer to binary gender identities. The words “brother”, “sister”, “dad”, “mother”, “aunt”, “uncle", "boyfriend", and "girlfriend" all assume a person is either a man or a woman. But what about those folks who identify as non-binary, agender, or Two-Spirit? Or folks who are gender non-conforming, gender-neutral, or are … [Read more...]
Why We Should Say “Female Genital Cutting” and Not “Mutilation”
Having worked on campaigns like the Olympics and the Paralympics, London-born Jay Kamara Frederick believes the key to her award winning marketing is that she always tries to understand her audience’s mind-set. But that’s something, she says, that Austrian-born feminist Fran Hosken failed to do in her 1976 manifesto ‘The Hosken Report: Genital/Sexual Mutilation.’ Despite her … [Read more...]
10 Reasons Cis Men Must Unabashedly Support Trans and Gender Non-Conforming Folks
Trans and gender non-conforming folks have not been at the forefront of rights and access discussions in the United States as much as they are today. Much of these discussions and this attention has been good, with more and more people coming out as trans or gender non-conforming and more and more people supporting them and pushing for laws to protect them. Unfortunately, many … [Read more...]
The Myth of the Super Black Woman
I like to write, because I can state my opinion without using my voice. It's got a slight tremble at times, my voice; slurred, a certain softness due to illness that gives me away. In my mind it has and will always indicate imperfection, vulnerability. A strangeness that has always meant I immediately and inevitably fall below a threshold of normalcy, fall below gendered … [Read more...]
On Dudes, Menstruation, and Getting Over It
My sister once told me a story of a substitute teacher she had, a sweet woman with kind eyes and an adorable bob. She arrived at school wearing a black dress dappled with bright, white flower designs. This teacher walked up and down the aisles as my sister’s classmates worked on math problems. She leaned over my sister’s desk to answer a question, and the boy behind her audibly … [Read more...]
Please Don’t Sexualize My Daughter: Balancing “Good” Parenting With My Child’s Freedom
When my daughter, P, started to attended a small “unschool”, she discovered not only a joyous education but also the joy of colored hair. Unschoolers believe that children learn better when they pick what they learn and how to learn said subjects. It wasn’t surprising, then, to find kids who also chose how they wished to present themselves to the world. The girls at the school … [Read more...]
6 Ways Gender Stereotypes Make Mental Illness Invisible in Men
Mental health issues affect everyone, no matter how you identify. This is true regardless of whether you receive a classic psychiatric diagnosis or work to recognize the symptoms of mental illness in your own life or in the lives of those you love. This fact comes as no surprise to many of us, but for some, there is a strong denial that they are affected by mental health … [Read more...]
Take The Cake: Dear Fat Girl, Do You Know How Powerful You Are?
This article by Virgie Tovar originally appeared on Ravishly and has been republished with permission. A question that has been haunting me for well over a month now is one that was posed to me by an ultra cute, very smart fat girl. She asked me how I learned to give up on the dream of being a desirable, beautiful, sexy thin person. Her question seemed to unveil a worldview … [Read more...]
