fiveyearsnotice:

Transgender Navy SEAL ‘Warrior Princess’ Comes Out

A former member of the elite U.S. Navy SEALs has come out to say she’s now a woman.

Kristin Beck, formerly Chris, served 20 years as a SEAL and fought on some of the most dangerous battlefields in the world, but after she left the service she realized she wasn’t living the life she wanted.

(Full Article here)

OK, I know it’s tacky to comment on how lovely a lady is, as if my personal sexual attraction were the most important accolade a woman could hope to garner, but there’s just something about a gal who could field-strip and reassemble any armament on Earth that gets me goin’.

my-transition-as-a-trans:

As you all know, I had my appointment today at 4:15. Apparently the recommendation that I have from my counselor isn’t “elaborate” enough. The doctor told me that I should’ve gone through a formal evaluation and have taken a written test, to determine that I am precisely transgender. I honestly…

Hi, I saw this while boppin’ around the MtF tag, and was going to reply in an Ask, but frankly couldn’t find the “send” button on your Ask page. Hurr…

Anyhow, sorry your doctor is stuck in the 1950s. I’m FtM, and got my testosterone prescription on the basis of 2 months of therapy and my own say-so.  I know that some doctors even operate on an informed consent basis: you say “I’m trans, and I know what hormones do,” and they write the scrip. Where-about do you live? (You can tell me in an Ask if you don’t want to say in public.) I can see if my endocrinologist knows anyone with sense out your way.

freedominwickedness:

world-of-whit:

transgenderqueerful:

world-of-whit:

everythingbutharleyquinn:

odofemi:

TRANS ROMANTIC

Can I take a moment to tell you all about something amazing? In recent years, the place of trans women in pornography has been a topic of hot debate within trans communities, and a site of some awesome activism. Some of this activism has included Tobi Hill-Meyer’s seminal Doing it Ourselves: Trans Women Porn Project, which featured queer trans women in a feminist porn context. That movie brought a lot of issues around transmisogyny to light, and queer trans women have been making serious inroads into the feminist porn world as a result.

But what about straight trans women? So often trans activism focuses on one specific trans experience: that of a mostly white, exclusively queer kind of trans person. Straight trans women have been left out of the conversation. And when we talk about straight trans woman porn, we can see only typical tranny and shemale porn produced for a cis male gaze.

Well, legendary feminist pornographer Nica Noelle has changed that. She has started a new studio called Trans Romantic that creates porn specifically catering to the desires of straight trans women and other trans women who like cis men. This is stuff made for a trans woman’s gaze. The first title in this series, Forbidden Lovers, has a plotline about a cis man taking his trans woman girlfriend home to meet his parents, before she’s disclosed being trans. When she does disclose, they have amazing and hot sex! The non-sex parts are super cute and really romantic and lovely. Dreamy!

The great thing about this is that the men are really hot! Tranny and shemale porn are stigmatized industries, meaning that male performers often won’t be able to return to straight or gay porn if they do tranny or shemale porn, and that results in usually really unattractive/boring guys doing it with super babely trans ladies. Nica Noelle has found REALLY HOT GUYS who are excited to be part of these films! This is a big deal in the porn world.

I absolutely loved Forbidden Lovers, and I’m not even straight. Want to support things for trans women and not just your tiny bubble of acceptably queer ones? SUPPORT TRANS ROMANTIC!!

Edited to add: Also! These movies are produced with plotlines that show trans women as not only objects of desire, but SUBJECTS OF LOVING RELATIONSHIPS. That is hugely revolutionary.

Huh. I don’t usually go for straight porn, but this could work.  Especially if it’s made from the girls’ point of view.  I know that coming out to one’s lover can carry a lot of anxiety for some trans people; it’s probably very soothing to see it as something sexy rather than life-wrecking. 

Also, fuck all y’all haters who say that this excludes or erases trans men. Just because the girls did something without us, doesn’t mean they hate us.  They’re perfectly capable of doing things that have NOTHING TO DO WITH US whatsoever.  Stop stealing pages from the normo guys’ playbook.  You wanna see porn with trans women gettin’ it on with trans men?  Make it your own damn selves.  Except now I think that the trans ladies won’t want to sleep with your misogynist asses, anyhow.

(via dirkpee)

Transgender women explain complaint against Portland club

PORTLAND, OR (KPTV) -

A north Portland bar owner is under fire after a group of patrons say he kicked them out just because they are transgender.

Hm. On one hand, it’s his place of business, he has a right to refuse service to anyone he sees fit.  

On the other hand, the ladies (and all their friends) have a right to protest this treatment.  If you think some transexuals INside your bar having a quiet drink are bad for business, you ought to see what happens when you’ve got a picket line of ornery queers of all stripes OUTside your bar.  Nobody wants to get involved in politics on a Friday night; they’ll all go someplace else.

elliottdeline:

TRANS* “FIRSTS”

Lana Wachowski, director of the Matrix films, came out recently as a trans* woman. She is the first openly trans* director.

In the spirit of that, I thought I’d mention a few other firsts. (I use “trans*” because I don’t have specific quotes from the people as how they identify. Also, I know little about some of these people and their politics/opinions/histories. I just know that they are firsts, and that’s what’s being celebrated here.)

1. Georgina Beyer, New Zealand. First trans* Member of Parliament and world’s first trans* mayor. 

2. Candis Cayne, USA. First trans* actress to play a recurring trans* character on prime time TV. 

3. Amanda Simpson. First openly trans* woman political appointee in any administration. 

4. Dana International, Israel. First trans* person to win the Eurovision Song Contest. 

5. Lucas Silviera, Canada. First open trans* man lead singer of a band signed by a major record label. 

6. Kye Allums, USA. First trans* man to play NCAA Division I basketball. He was scholarship athlete on the George Washington University Female Basketball Team and came out as male.

7. Kylar Broadas, USA. First trans* person to testify before the Senate (and about gender-based employment discrimination, too!)

Check out these fine persons!  Ms Beyer is also out and proud as a former sex worker, and advocated for sex worker rights while in office.

(via artoftransliness)

BOSTON, Lincolnshire, U.K. — A 16-year-old British transgender girl was told that she couldn’t take her GCSE exam (equivalent to high school finals) and was sent home by teachers to change into the boys’ school uniform.

…

A spokesman for the school said that “Giles Academy is an Ofsted Outstanding school in a caring environment with robust Equalities Policies. The Governing Body of the Academy rejects all the allegations. Our key concerns are to ensure our duty of care to all our students and to further ensure that they reach their full potential academically and become well rounded members of society.”

(Mark Singer, LGBTQ Nation)

Just. Shut. UP.

fuckyeahmtfs:

kellanium:

kellanium:

fuckyeahmtfs:

What say we bring it back?

I would love to see it brought back, however, the sheer amount of violence, discrimination, and general bullshit that trans women have to go through is staggering. Simply because of who we are we are subjected to sub-standard…

Wear all your tops tuesday? I could dig that.

If I get even one picture that looks like joey from friends, it will make my week at the very least

I’m in favour of anything that makes women happier and more comfortable in their bodies.  Full disclosure: yes, I’m a big fan of naked ladies on my own account.  For both reasons, I hate that our society constrains women’s freedom, and particularly trans women’s freedom, in this way.  I realise that you get, like, a double-extra-helping of the Madonna/Whore Complex.  If trans women want to show off their chests, whether to display the bosoms you’ve worked so hard to get, the tattoos you chose, or the natural shape and colour that you cherish, you should be able to do so.  Here are some work-arounds that you could try, if you felt so inclined:

• Cropping your face out of the photo: iffy, can be dehumanising.
• Arms crossed over your suddenly culturally relevant nipples: coy cheesecake or defiant stance, your choice.
• A photo from behind, or 3/4 view: show off your strong, sleek back.
• Wear a mask: my personal favourite.  Terry Pratchett once said something like “masks hide one face, but reveal another.”  A lot of people feel more free to show their true selves while wearing a mask.  

This all is really just my ponderings on a sociological problem.  I’m not a trans woman, and I’m not about to show off my naked person on the Internet, so I really have no place to speak- see the “unsolicited advice” tag, down there.  I’m sure that the women concerned will have their own, rather more relevant, ideas about how to address this.

transfeminism:

www.JeremySaffer.com

In July of 2011, Life of Agony vocalist [Mina] Caputo shocked the music world by announcing plans to transition … [T]he musician dealt with a huge backlash from the heavy metal community across message boards and news forums after word got out about her plans. “I got a lot of grief for it, but it was nothing compared to the years of pain I went through not being open about the way I felt inside,” Caputo, 38, told Noisecreep during a recent phone chat from her home in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Genderqueers are brutal, and sex changes are totally metal.

I feel like that precocious twit in The Sixth Sense- I see queer people where no-one else does.  There’s a tall, strapping girl who works as a cashier at one of the grocery stores, and just now I encountered two bikers in Dunkin Donuts.  They were hairy and tattoo’d and had just dismounted from Harleys, but they were shorter than my modest 5’6” height, and had the dainty hands.  I met eyes with the younger one, and we had the “you know that I know that you know” look, but I didn’t dare say anything.  

Even though it’d be hideously bad manners, I want to point these folks out to my family and say LOOK, WE EXIST. EVEN IN THIS BULLSHIT NARROW-MINDED LITTLE TOWN, WE EXIST. However, I’m pretty sure that any trans folks around here chose a bullshit narrow-minded little town so that they would pass without the scrutiny of gender-savvy gaze that occurs in the larger cities.  

fuckyeahmtfs:

“This is an inclusive space for the celebration of all butch, futch, butch-femme switches, grrls, genderqueer, genderfluid and other likewise MTF spectrum folk out there!”

I like butches, I like trans women… sign me up!

beverly-heels:

thismakesmeanxious:

fyqueerlatinxs:

thespiritwas:

Marsha P Johnson

photo by Randy Wicker

Stonewall Veteran and STAR co-founder. Learn you history folx. If it weren’t for trans women of color like Marsha and Sylvia, we’d still be hiding in dark bars praying the cops don’t raid it.

so much respect

super hero.

I want to be like Marsha P when I grow up.

(via fyeahqueervintage)

hobbitdragon:

tuesday-johnson:

ca. 1896, [portrait of a gentleman posed in lady’s costume], Richard von Krafft-Ebing

via the Wellcome Library, Archives & Manuscripts Collection

This person is fabulous, I hope they felt fantastic dressing up and getting photographed like this. :D

Dat historical azz.

(via wienermeister)

Anonymous asked: So I just found out about this thing called the "Cotton Ceiling" and I'm curious as to your thoughts about it and the people who are pro and con.

I think, as I generally do, that people need to calm the fuck down.  

For any of my readers not familiar with the term, the “cotton ceiling” means that some people believe that cisgendered lesbians, as a general class, won’t sleep with transgendered ladies, as a general class.  Let me make this clear: any time you start making sweeping generalisations about whole groups of people, you’re treading on thin ice over a pond full of peculiarly cold-immune alligators.

I can only speak from my own experience, here.  I know lesbians who would not sleep with trans ladies who were still, well, let’s call it “factory equipped.”* That’s their prerogative, not everyone is obliged to want to sleep with everyone else.  On the other hand, I know trans women who’ve had no difficulty attracting cis lesbians.  When it comes to formal membership in queer groups, I only sign on to organisations that enthusiastically accept trans people of all types.  I have met trans women through said organisations, and have indeed slept with them.  That last is not really indicative of anything vis-a-vis the cotton ceiling; I sleep with lots of people.  All I’m saying is, I’ve never had any personal experience with the cotton ceiling.

That having been said, I am pretty sure that there are some radical “feminists” who would be as appalled to hook up with a “trap” as any  given homophobe (I seeeee you, Janice Raymond).  Hint, radical left: any time you start finding yourself on the same side as the radical right, YOUR DOIN IT RONG. See the anti-porn crusades of the 1980s.  If you’re sitting next to Phyllis Schafly, get up and leave.  More moderate leftists: if you’re sitting next to someone who agrees with Phyllis Schafly, get up and leave.

And, THAT having been said, loneliness and the fear of loneliness is a big issue for trans people.  About every trans person I’ve talked to  is afraid that people won’t “get” us, that we’ll be ostracised, that we’ll die alone.  I don’t think that codifying this fear of rejection in terms of “the cotton ceiling” is gonna help, though.  We don’t want the stigma of being too freakish to love, but it’s no good to go stigmatising others.  We can’t blame people for not wanting to sleep with us, it’s nobody’s responsibility to have the hots for us.  All we can do is try to be good people, be calm, be kind, be active in our communities, and trust that others will accept those as indicators of our true nature, not our physical shape or our chromosome counts.  Nothing guarantees we won’t be lonely, but if it’s any help, nothing guarantees that to anyone else, either.

Long story short, as Hedwig said: I don’t think that rejection of trans women is universal in the female-shaped-queer community, I don’t see how anyone could be “pro” cotton ceiling, but I really don’t think that the phrase “cotton ceiling” is helping anyone.

*The terms “pre-op” and “non-op” both make the presumption that The Operation is the be-all and end-all of trans experience.  

krisiv:

With all the hubub going around lately it’s nice to see somebody speak articulately about what’s going on. 

Cogent and comprehensive.  We need to check ourselves, guys.  Our MtF sisters deal with enough bullcrap from the rest of the world without getting it from us, too.

Personally I’m concerned about my own use of the word “tranny.”  I have a few younger trans friends who, for some reason, consider me an acceptable source of advice and guidance. Demographically, they consist of mostly trans-masculine types, only a few trans-feminine, and occasionally a total genderqueer intersex individual will cross my path.  I refer to them collectively as “my tiny trannies,” mainly only when talking to Ms Jess, who is a butch dyke and gets the genderqueer deal.  Should I stop calling them that, though?  I’ve also been known to call them “my baby gays.”  How best to convey my affection, without getting mushy about it?

(via darziel)