Your Y Chromosome Ain't Got Nothin On Me

My Research Lab Will Be at Philly Trans Health!

Tue, 21 May 2013 09:55:00 -0400

Hey y’all! I’m really looking forward to this year’s Philadelphia Trans Health Conference in June. I’ve actually never been but have wanted to for the past 3 or 4 years. And now not only do I get to go, but I’ll be involved in a workshop and I’ll be presenting some early findings from the research survey you all so helpfully circulated.

There are a lot of really great presentations that I’m excited about, but I thought I would give you all info on the workshops my research and advocacy/activism lab at University of Louisville is involved in.

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Okay first of all, one of my colleagues and I will be presenting our research at the Graduate Student Research Symposium, which is on June 15 and is divided into two sessions, 8:45-10:10 & 10:25-11:40.

My presentation is based on analyses Dr. Budge and I conducted on the data I collected in January and February, and is titled Transgender Identity Integration as a Factor in the Emotional Well-being of Post-transition Individuals.

My colleague, Kinton Rossman, will be presenting their research in a presentation titled “Just Because I Commanded That Respect - I Got the Privilege”: Qualitative Examination of Privilege in the Trans* Community.

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Workshops are listed below in chronological order:

Ethical Considerations for Medical and Mental Health Professionals Working With Trans* US Military Servicemembers after the Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Open to all; June 13, 2:20-3:40; Room 105B

Presented by Jacob Eleazer

Despite the recent 2010 repeal of the congressionally mandated Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) policy, current military regulations continue to prohibit transgender, transsexual, genderqueer, intersex, and gender non-conforming (trans*) persons from serving openly in the military. As such, care providers in military settings face legal and administrative obstacles when attempting to provide ethical and competent services to trans* Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines. This presentation will begin by conceptualizing trans* military service in the context of oppression as a historic narrative in the fields of medicine, mental health, and the US military. This epistemological approach will then provide a framework to discuss specific challenges for both civilian and military care providers when working with trans* military servicemembers. The presentation will conclude with several recommendations and resources for medical and mental health clinicians in reducing harm and improving outcomes when working with this vulnerable population.

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Navigating the Social Transition

Open to all; June 15, 8:15am-10:05am; Room 110B

Presented by Kinton Rossman, Amanda Stahl, Jayden Thai, Morgan Sinnard, Yen Nguyen

This workshop provides a forum for discussing the challenges related to social transition (e.g. changes in pronouns, expressing gender identity, name changes, etc.) for individuals who identify as trans*. Individual issues such as coming out to family and friends, as well as systemic issues like coping with difficulties at work and/or educational settings, etc. will be presented. Research related to negotiating gender privilege and changes in sexual orientation following transition will be presented and discussed in the context of social transition. Facilitators will assist attendees in gaining skills for self care to address these specific challenges as well as develop skills to increase social supports.

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Incorporating Positivity into Psychotherapy

Open to all; June 15, 2:20-3:40; Room 110B

Presented by Stephanie Budge, Sebastian Barr, Sabra Katz-Wise, Bethany Keller, and Megan Manthos

Psychotherapy literature addresses trans* affirmative therapy, however, we are still far from understanding the spectrum of positive emotional experiences. This is essential, as popular culture focuses on the phenomenon of “transgender regret,” which is not generalizable. Trans* individuals overwhelmingly report happiness with their identity and that it was best decision they had ever made (Budge et al.,in press). This workshop will provide training to mental health professionals and other interested individuals as to how to incorporate positivity into treatment. Participants will be asked to brainstorm their most positive professional experiences working with trans* individuals and/or identifying as trans*. We will compare the experiences reported by workshop attendees to the types of positive emotions and experiences described by trans* individuals who were interviewed about positivity. Next, we will address the complicated nature of providing hope for clients while also helping them to process emotional hardship. Last, we will have a break-out portion of the workshop for participants to discuss how they will incorporate positivity within their own practice and or/ in their own lives.

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Asian and Pacific Islander Gender Non-conforming, Intersex, and Trans* Caucus

Attendance restricted to API gender non-conforming, intersex, and trans* people; June 15, 4:05-5:25; Room 102B

Led by Jayden Thai

We want to facilitate an Asian and Pacific Islander gender non conforming, intersex, and trans* caucus. It’s crucial that we have a safe space of our own where we can touch upon the cultural issues and personal history of being a gender non-conforming, intersex or trans* and Asian and Pacific Islander. Whether you were born in the US, you or your family has immigrated from Asia, or you are an Asian American adoptee, this workshop is designed for us to share our experiences. Being transgender, intersex, gender queer, and gender nonconforming individuals, there are many ways in which our ethnicities have played a part in our gender expression or identity. Trans*, gender variant, and intersex individuals are among the most concealed and at the lowest edge of social standing in the API community mostly due lack of understanding of our lives. Sharing our stories in a space that is specific to us is powerful. Our stories help shape change in our personal life’s and the world at large.

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And if yre interested in learning more about the other work my lab is involved in, we recently created a facebook page: T*STAR Lab on Facebook.

T*STAR stands for Trans* and Sexuality Teaching, Advocacy, and Research. One of our lab members came up with the brilliant slogan, Mapping the Genderverse.

I hope to see and meet many of you at the conference - definitely come up and say hi :) And thanks again for all yr research support at the beginning of the year.

Final Push! - You have 2 days left to be a part of this study on post-transition identity

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 13:15:00 -0500

Final Push! - You have 2 days left to be a part of this study on post-transition identity:

This is last you will hear about this survey I PROMISE. The Survey Will Close February 17!!

Participation has been really amazing so far and because of people’s thoughtful answers, it looks like even more research will come out of this than originally planned. For example, I may in the future be able to do qualitative analysis on some of the responses to questions like how someone defines a gender transition.

So if you participate your answers will likely be informing a really wide range of research and publications about identity, transition, and more! Please see the recruitment email below and if you’d be ever so kind as to circulate this on social networking sites today, maybe we can get a nice spike in the final two days. The more people who participate the more representative this work will be!

Thank you again to everyone who has participated and/or helped spread the word.

xxboy:

—UPDATE: SURVEY WILL CLOSE ON FEBRUARY 17—

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Sebastian Barr and I am currently conducting a research project under the supervision of Dr. Stephanie Budge as part of my doctoral program. This project explores well-being in individuals who have undergone a gender transition (including but not limited to people who identify as female, male, genderqueer, transgender female, transgender male, stealth, binary, non-binary). To qualify for the study, participants must have undergone some degree of a social and/or medical gender transition (for many participants this can be phrased as living as a gender different from the sex they were assigned at birth) and be over the age of 18. Participation involves completing an online questionnaire that will take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete.

The information collected may or may not benefit you directly; however, you will have the opportunity to reflect on a range of life experiences and emotions (both seemingly related and unrelated to transition). Some people may find this to be helpful. Additionally, the information learned in this study may be helpful to others in understanding how different approaches to individuals’ identities can result in higher levels of well-being. This could lead to important applications in therapy and counseling.

It is important to us that the research reflects the wide range of identities and experiences of those who have gone through a gender transition, so we strongly encourage the participation of individuals who are often left out of other studies, e.g., those who live stealth or do not identify as transgender and people with non-binary identities.

If you are interested in being a part of this study, you can complete the questionnaire here:http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TransitionAndIdentityStudy.

If you have any questions, please contact Sebastian Barr at smbarr01@louisville.edu or Stephanie Budge,slbudg01@louisville.edu.

Thank you,

Sebastian Mitchell Barr

Doctoral Student, Counseling Psychology

Educational and Counseling Psychology

University of Louisville

Lessons We Can (and Should) Learn from a Young Friend's Death

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 17:23:01 -0500

I’ve been debating writing and sharing this. I don’t want to politicize the death of someone whom I greatly cared for nor do I want people to misinterpret this as politicizing. But I also think the world needs to know the results of our culture(s) of intolerance.

Last week a young person killed himself. He was 14. He was a boy with a bright smile who happened to have been female assigned at birth and to have lived his first 13 years with a different name and different pronouns. I saw his parents express fear and sadness and anger as they grappled with understanding their son’s gender and the realities of a gender transition and a life post-transition. I sat with them in those emotions and assured them that his struggle and their struggle would be well worth the benefits that would come from living as who he truly was. He didn’t get to see my promise come true, and neither did they.

I could barely contain my joy when I saw pictures of him with his hair cut, when I saw that his Facebook had been updated to his new name, when I saw his big smile in photos with a group of LGBTQ youth and their allies.

I remember the first time he came to the weekly meeting of this group. I think it was the first time he had seen people his age that were able to freely express their wide array of identities, and it was maybe the first time his gender and experience were actually celebrated. He had three hours a week of this acceptance and celebration and freedom. What is three hours a week up against seven days of incorrect pronouns? Against five days a week of bullying? Against media that doesn’t show boys that look like you or men that grew up with your history? Against textbooks that equate your gender with body parts that don’t match yours? Against a future of sports teams you won’t be allowed on? Against adults you respect using language that negates your identity and experiences? Against a religious community you were once a part of telling you that you must choose between hiding who you are and going to hell? Against a lifetime of people trying to tell you how you have to identify, what groups you belong to, and what your gender and history mean about you as a person?

When someone takes their own life there are almost always multiple factors involved. But I one hundred percent believe that this young man would still be living if the world understood him, accepted him, and treated him as normal. Bullying is a problem, but we need to be more critical of the environment that fosters the bullying and allows the bullying to continue. And we need to talk about the difficulties trans* youth face outside of bullying – there is a whole society that is set up in a way that others them.

This should not have happened. He should not be dead. The world will suffer without the contributions he was going to make. Countless people have lost someone they cared about and/or respected. It is a tragedy that cannot be erased. There are lessons to be learned here, and I want everyone to think about this boy and his family and this tragedy and reflect upon the way we each contribute to a society that excludes trans* people, whether that is by allowing only for two genders or by making rules for who gets to identify as those genders. This is far more pervasive a problem than bullying and blatant transphobia. In my experience, the blatant hate is a lot easier to handle than a society that subtly and constantly tells me I don’t belong. Neither are easy, and neither should be anything a young person (or anyone) has to deal with.

Does anyone have a reddit account with some cred?

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 16:08:09 -0500

Looking to get the survey request on some community boards there. Shoot me an email: smbarr01@louisville.edu if you want to help! It would be greatly appreciated.

XXBoy returns and he wants to research y'all! :) (PLEASE CIRCULATE/REBLOG/TWEET/FBOOK)

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 15:59:00 -0500

XXBoy returns and he wants to research y'all! :) (PLEASE CIRCULATE/REBLOG/TWEET/FBOOK):

Hello everyone! I successfully survived my first semester as a doctoral student and have already been launched into many research projects!

I’m really excited about a project I’ve developed and am launching right now. I’m using an anonymous online survey to study the identity, body image, and emotional well-being of people who have undergone a gender transition (people who live as a gender that is different from the sex they were assigned at birth). The implications of this study could potentially be huge in the field of counseling psychology and will hopefully impact people’s experiences with therapists and psychologists. You must be 18 to complete the survey. The official recruitment letter and the link for the survey are pasted below. Please spread far and wide. Successful results require a large number of responses!

:) :) :)

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Sebastian Barr and I am currently conducting a research project under the supervision of Dr. Stephanie Budge as part of my doctoral program. This project explores well-being in individuals who have undergone a gender transition (including but not limited to people who identify as female, male, genderqueer, transgender female, transgender male, stealth, binary, non-binary). To qualify for the study, participants must have undergone some degree of a social and/or medical gender transition (for many participants this can be phrased as living as a gender different from the sex they were assigned at birth) and be over the age of 18. Participation involves completing an online questionnaire that will take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete.

The information collected may or may not benefit you directly; however, you will have the opportunity to reflect on a range of life experiences and emotions (both seemingly related and unrelated to transition). Some people may find this to be helpful. Additionally, the information learned in this study may be helpful to others in understanding how different approaches to individuals’ identities can result in higher levels of well-being. This could lead to important applications in therapy and counseling.

It is important to us that the research reflects the wide range of identities and experiences of those who have gone through a gender transition, so we strongly encourage the participation of individuals who are often left out of other studies, e.g., those who live stealth or do not identify as transgender and people with non-binary identities.

If you are interested in being a part of this study, you can complete the questionnaire here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TransitionAndIdentityStudy.

If you have any questions, please contact Sebastian Barr at smbarr01@louisville.edu or Stephanie Budge, slbudg01@louisville.edu.

Thank you,

Sebastian Mitchell Barr

Doctoral Student, Counseling Psychology

Educational and Counseling Psychology

University of Louisville

XXBoy returns and he wants to research y'all! :) (PLEASE CIRCULATE/REBLOG/TWEET/FBOOK)

Sun, 20 Jan 2013 15:55:00 -0500

Hello everyone! I successfully survived my first semester as a doctoral student and have already been launched into many research projects!

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Sebastian Barr and I am currently conducting a research project under the supervision of Dr. Stephanie Budge as part of my doctoral program. This project explores well-being in individuals who have undergone a gender transition (including but not limited to people who identify as female, male, genderqueer, transgender female, transgender male, stealth, binary, non-binary). To qualify for the study, participants must have undergone some degree of a social and/or medical gender transition (for many participants this can be phrased as living as a gender different from the sex they were assigned at birth) and be over the age of 18. Participation involves completing an online questionnaire that will take approximately 10-15 minutes to complete.

If you are interested in being a part of this study, you can complete the questionnaire here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TransitionAndIdentityStudy.

If you have any questions, please contact Sebastian Barr at smbarr01@louisville.edu or Stephanie Budge, slbudg01@louisville.edu.

Thank you,

Sebastian Mitchell Barr

Doctoral Student, Counseling Psychology

Educational and Counseling Psychology

University of Louisville

The Top 10 Trans-Friendly Colleges and Universities | Advocate.com

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 13:53:00 -0400

The Top 10 Trans-Friendly Colleges and Universities | Advocate.com:

In alphabetical order:

Ithica College
New York University
Princeton University
University of California Los Angeles
University of California Riverside
University of Massachusetts Amherst
University of Michigan Ann Arbor
University of Oregon
University of Pennsylvania
University of Vermont

Read in more detail.

While this list is important and I’m sure Campus Pride’s rating system is very good, I’m surprised to see UMass Amherst on here and equally surprised to not see Hampshire College or Evergreen or Sarah Lawrence.

Granted, UMass Amherst has a really amazing resource center that is BEYOND trans inclusive, and perhaps it has good policies, but the climate is hardly trans-positive or even necessarily safe, whereas Hampshire’s climate is incredibly safe and even encouraging of honest gender expression and exploration.

Disappointing update on Sarah Lawrence, though it is counter to the one experience I have heard about the school: xyxrebellion said: sarah lawrence isn’t that great at all. the faculty and staff don’t always respect our names and pronouns, even when they know the proper ones.

Lost On Transition: A Request For Accurate and Respectful Reporting on Trans* People and Gender Diversity

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 13:25:00 -0400

Lost On Transition: A Request For Accurate and Respectful Reporting on Trans* People and Gender Diversity:

So as I stop actively blogging on xxboy, which is more of a space for personal reflection and guidance (two things I think many blogs/ppl including The Art of Tranliness, Self Made Men, Annika at Transgender Express and Janet Mock do very well, by the way), I will be continuing to write for a new blog called Lost on Transition.

I was encouraged to start this blog by my girlfriend who suggested that rants to her and on facebook were hardly the most productive use of my brain power and energy. Check it out if you’re interested. The first article I critique will be the cover story from this weekend’s NYTimes’ T Magazine - a piece on gender-variant children and the growing movement to let ‘em be.

lostontransition:

Introductory Post: What is This Blog All About?

Well mainly I am targeting journalists who have written, are writing, or might in the future write about trans* people and/or gender diversity. Journalists who, we might say, are lost when it comes to issues of gender transition…

"Not Cool, Bro": A Trans Guy's Relationship to and Critique of DudeBro Culture

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 09:40:00 -0400

[Trigger Warning for mention and some description of physical and sexual assault against women. There are also three disclaimers at the very end of this post that maybe you should read first..]

Yesterday I spent probably 3 hours obsessively reading about the murder of Yeardley Love. Love was 22, a senior and lacrosse player at University of Virginia, and in May of 2010, her All-American UVA lacrosse-playing boyfriend beat her to death. They looked like the it couple at every sports bar, and in fact many articles reported that they spent more time at their local UVA sports bar than they did in their own living rooms. They were the picture perfect poster image of upper-class educated dude bro culture and were plagued with the dark underside that has become a large part of that culture. Binge drinking, violence against women, blackout sexual encounters, and most terrifying – a perspective that these things are normal and/or inescapable.

I couldn’t tear myself away from the articles. I wanted every fact. I wanted to see pictures of Yeardley. Pictures of George Wesley Huguely V (as in “the fifth”). I wanted to see pictures of them together at frat parties. What high schools did they go to? Were they smart? What were their friends like? What did their friends say about them? And their families?

I have a strange relationship to what I’m calling “dudebro” culture. It has become a popular way to refer to the social world of (mostly) white, straight, upper-middle and upper class, educated, athletic men in button-downs and patterned pants, who belong/belonged/will belong to fraternities, and can often be found sporting well-groomed but shaggy hair and a solo cup. The term comes condescendingly from the language that these groups of young men often use – “Nice catch, dude.” “Pass me a cup, bro.”

I went to a small, private high school in North Carolina that between classes transformed into a sea of polos, button-downs and pearls. Dudebros and the girls that loved them. I’ve heard these young women referred to as broettes, but I know far less about that culture and have been much more observant of the male aspects of this social world. The most I will say about the women and girls involved in dudebro culture is that there seems to be a certain kind of girl that dudebros are attracted to (or that it is acceptable for dudebros to be attracted to) and this particular type of girl seems to be attracted to dudebros. They are very typically beautiful, hyper-feminine, visibly well-off socioeconomically, with perfectly manicured hair, nails, make-up. In my experience, they were intelligent but played down their intelligence when in the presence of others, involved with sororities and/or field-hockey/soccer/lacrosse teams. I also am only really familiar with this culture as it plays out in the South, though it is my understanding that it is not so different across the country. In high school and college, school spirit was a major part of their social lives. Football games, basketball games, school rivalries, tailgating. Heavy drinking was equally important (and often intertwined with school spirit).

I spoke with disdain about my high school peers throughout my time in North Carolina. I, at the time, was living as a girl who prided myself on being non-stereotypical. I came out as being attracted to women before my junior year. In behavior, attitude, and speech, I deliberately distanced myself from what I viewed as the heterosexual herds. I was cruel about it I think, though not outwardly. But within my social circles and inside my head, I had reduced all of these individuals to sheep within the dudebro culture. My senior year, I remember my utter shock when I got to know some female students in my grade and they were intelligent, critical thinkers, with natural leadership skills and even some hidden feminism. When I no longer hated them, I grew sad. And I started hating the boys and the patriarchal social structure that boxed these girls in. That forced them to do keg stands and giggle when boys sexually harassed them. That prevented them from speaking in class when I knew they probably had really brilliant ideas about Invisible Man because it was cuter for them to not know what was going on.

I could go on but I’m really getting away from my point. I mean I haven’t even made my point. This is all intro.

My first point is that I went into college hating the men of dudebro culture. My one year at Boston University and the close quarters I shared with a number of “PIKE” fraternity brothers fueled this even more as I constantly heard jokes about and proud stories of date rape. I transferred to Smith College and was with all of these people who were female-assigned-at-birth, the vast majority of with were women. In an environment where there was this invisible castle wall keeping out all the male/dudebro-driven pressures to put on three layers of make-up for your 8am class. Where mostly women held leadership positions and they excelled. Where they learned it was okay, even desired, to speak out when you had opinions and engage people in critical discussion. I witnessed transformations of young women who came from schools like mine. When I saw their potential realized, I hated dudebro culture even more. And then I would see so many of these strong independent women put on their wife-material/broette (some twisted combination of getting wasted and being okay with the “shocker” at night and sitting down for an expensive brunch with the family of a frat president the next morning) when they left campus for socializing at Amherst. I was enraged.

When I was first coming out as trans I struggled a lot with being male. Part of me knew I was, knew I always had been. But the other part of me could not accept that I shared anything with these dudebros. Despite knowing good men like my friends in high school and my father, who were nothing like dudebros, I had this sense that that is what real men were and I couldn’t really be a man because I was nothing like that. I got to know more of the good guys though and once I understood the vast spectrum of gender expression and “how to be a guy,” I grew comfortable with my male identity.

Then something happened after I transitioned socially and then medically.

I grew very comfortable with my male identity. And with a normative masculine gender expression. I was still critical of male privilege and a vocal feminist who had trouble sitting through many mainstream movies because of their sexist and/or gender essentialist plots and dialogue. But I became a little infatuated with the southern dudebro. I found that I shared a lot with that culture in terms of style and taste. As a person living as a woman, it was a little unique to love j.crew men’s clothes. As a young man, it was clichéd and normative. I have a closet full of button-downs and dress shirts. I own two pairs of boat shoes and want more. My pants have become less and less skinny. It would be an understatement to say I love the nautical look. And I even own a pair of patterned shorts. As a woman it was unique, interesting, even subversive to be attracted to and involved with straight, typically-beautiful young women – girls very similar to the late Yeardley Love. As a man, it just made me [at least in appearances] one half of a very typical heterosexual pairing.

Though I lamented my loss of uniqueness and edge, I also welcomed the normalcy I now adorned. I think I welcomed the privilege that came with that too. The social acceptance.

And I started to wonder if maybe I fit into dudebro culture more than I realized. I was tickled when a fratty guy said “Thanks, dude.” I paraded (in my head at least) my typical southern boy identity. I started growing nostalgic for high school homecoming games (that I hadn’t even attended in the first place) and wondered where my social loyalties would lie if things had been different. I started to think that had I been male assigned at birth I might have been one of the guys on the football team. The All-American quarterback who went to Penn. I started to think that if I had not been transgender, my life would have had a very different trajectory, and for the past year or so I’ve (pretty silently) mourned the “loss” of that life. I’ve regretted being so vehemently against the mainstream cultures in my high school. I’ve wished I’d gone to a university with a Final Four basketball team and painted my face for game day. I think I’ve even wished for the bro camaraderie to such a degree that I at times romanticized the sexist talk they engage in and fantasized about raising our solo cups to the sorority girl who was drunk and dancing with her girl friend. (I hope the rest of this post has proven that I understand everything that is wrong with this and am consciously and actively critical of it but I want to be honest about my feelings.)

Because of this inner desire (or half-desire, conflicted desire, whatever) to have had my life play out differently, I’ve really distanced myself from my trans identity. Which is maybe a shock for many of you. I’ve been actively working with trans youth, I’ve been writing for queer websites and this blog, I’ve hardly lived stealth. But inside I’ve been so conflicted. And I really relished the spaces where people didn’t know and didn’t have to know my trans history. I have a wonderful girlfriend who is so far from typical, but she is gorgeous in a way that mainstream America would get on board with, and I totally ate up the fact that people were reading us as a typical Southern (attractive) hetero couple.

I’ve often thought about how I can work on trans issues/advocacy/research while living stealth. I asked my girlfriend not to disclose my status to anyone.

I think part of me thought that I could will myself into (an albeit more self-aware, feminist version of) a dudebro. And part of me thought that is what I wanted. I forgot about the real reasons I was so angry at that culture growing up. I had written it off as a gender issue – I thought I had been angry because I couldn’t be a part of something that actually fit me better than I let myself realize. If I could do it all differently, I thought I would.

Then, yesterday, I read about Yeardley Love and her dudebro. I read about the culture that had permitted George Huguely the Fifth to be violent with her and that told Yeardley and her friends (and George’s friends) that these issues and events were okay – at least not worth a separation (the couple had had a lot of volatile and even physical quarrels in the past and never really broken things off).

All of my memories of the people I went to high school with, the people I encountered at BU, at occasional parties in undergrad, at bars, came flooding back. I remembered the time a girl too drunk to stand was given the shocker in front of a room full of people while the guy doing it was applauded. I remembered a girl I’d been involved with telling me about how her high school boyfriend pushed her down the stairs once at a party. I remembered when the boy on “The Hills” who we were all supposed to like verbally abused his girlfriend on national television and called her slut right in her face only to get back together in the next episode. I remembered seeing guys grab their girlfriends by the arm. I remembered the casualness with which alcohol-based date rape was discussed (of course never with the term date rape) by young men and young women.

I am not like that. I will NEVER be like that. And I am so proud of those two things. I do not think that had I been male assigned at birth I would be destined to give my frat bro a pat on the back after getting a BJ from a hot drunk girl (pardon my crudeness). I know LOTS of cisgender men and boys that are not like that. But I do think that my tastes would have aligned more closely with those guys. I might have fit in with them better and been engulfed by this culture (as so many naturally good, well-raised boys are). I wouldn’t have had to have been different. And I wouldn’t have had to been introspective, self-aware and critical of myself. Most importantly, as my girlfriend pointed out, I probably wouldn’t have had to go through any sort of major change. My life would have likely gone forward without any foundational shaking that made me examine myself and the culture(s) I was a part of.

So the fact that I was female assigned at birth I think DOES have something to do with me being a better man. (Not better than all cisgender guys but yeah better than dudebro culture). And I am proud of that. And I think I have a responsibility to be extra careful and critical of these parts of society.

This reminds me of the recent discussion in the blogosphere of transgender men engaging in rape, date rape, and poor consent practices (all three of which you can also just call rape). Regardless of how early we transitioned, regardless of where on the spectrum our gender identity lies and even regardless of how connected we are to our trans history, we are men that know ourselves in a unique way. We are men who have had to go through some degree of monumental change. We both have earned and are blessed with this perspective on masculinity and gender and gender roles and power dynamics and women and sexism and patriarchy that we have an absolute responsibility to take advantage of. It is disgusting to me that man with a trans history would use any form of privilege to sexually take advantage of a woman. It is disgusting to me that a man with a trans history would even laugh at a sexist or homophobic (which are often gender stereotype-based) joke. [Obviously it is also disgusting to me that any man would do this.]

So, my short romantic (fantasy) affair with dudebro culture has been brought to an end and good riddance. And rising up from its ashes (like a PHOENIX) are two things: pride in the fact that I transitioned to live as the man I am and a renewed responsibility to dismantling male privilege, particularly its manifestation in violence against women.

For those of you skimming, here’s what those 4 pages of a word document really boiled down to: I used to think that maybe I would have been more like a dudebro if I’d been male assigned at birth; I started secretly half-wishing that I was a part of that culture; I started hiding my trans status partially out of a secret desire that I had been male assigned at birth; I read about the Yeardley Love murder case in which her dudebro boyfriend beat her to death; I remembered all of the dark sides to dudebro culture and male privilege and the seriously common problem of violence against women; I reflected on how my female assignment at birth had impacted me and more specifically the fact that I wasn’t yr typical dudebro; I renewed my commitment as a man with a trans history to fighting against all gender-privilege-based evils!!

[My disclaimer here is that of course I acknowledge the generalizations made here and not every fraternity brother in J.Crew gingham partakes in or even passively accepts things like date rape. I also acknowledge that what I’m writing about here is limited to my lens from and of fairly upper-class white society - and the privilege that comes with that - and I’m not sure that my observations on mainstream culture and masculinity can extend beyond that lens.]

[My second disclaimer is that this so long I am not going to proof read it, at least for 6 hours]

[My third disclaimer is that this is not a commentary on the decision to live stealth nor it is a full exploration of the many reasons I sometimes did not and sometimes will continue to not want to have my trans status shared - a lot of that has to do with ignorance about trans identities and gender diversity]

Transition Positivity: The good things, little and big, in the transition experiences of trans* folk.

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 09:30:00 -0400

Transition Positivity: The good things, little and big, in the transition experiences of trans* folk.:

Found this via the artoftransliness.

I am not female-bodied.

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 11:28:00 -0400

Ways in which the word “female” relates to me:

I was female assigned at birth
I lived in a female role before I transitioned to live as my true gender (a man)
People thought I was female

My body is not female. My sex is not female. There are parts of my anatomy and my chromosomes that people often assume are correlated with the word “female” and that usually accompany people who would describe their bodies as female, but they are parts of me so they’re male, because I’m male.

While I’m not suggesting it’s appropriate to go around talking about my body, I think that often times the term “female-bodied” is used in an attempt to include me in groups that it might be important to differentiate. So to that degree, I/my body fall in to these categories:

People with two X chromosomes
People without a Y chromosome
People with ovaries and a uterus (for now)
People who were born without a fully developed penis
People who do not currently have a fully developed penis
People who were born without testes
People who do not currently have testes
People who were born with vulvas
People who currently have vulvas
People who were born with vaginas
People who currently have vaginas
People whose chests at one point (or currently) had substantial breast tissue
People who have flat chests
People who were assigned the sex female at birth
Men
Males
People who are biologically male (yeah I’m biologically male)
People who live in a male role
People with high levels of testosterone
[And as an additional note, I also fall into groups like “people with eyebrows,” “people with blonde hair,” “people who are between five and sex feet tall” …]

Does this make sense? What are other trans* people’s perspectives on the terms male- and female-bodied? I don’t like the terms as they suggest there are only two kinds of bodies and I think they are misused beyond that. If someone made me choose, without thought I’d say I was male-bodied. I’m male so my body is male. Beyond that, biologically, aspects of my brain, my hormones, and my physique and anatomy are even what the mainstream would label as typically male.

On Being 'Trapped' By My Body - And Reclaiming It

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:33:48 -0400

Janet Mock is pretty amazing, by the way.

janetmock:

It took Dateline NBC’s Hoda Kotb approximately 13 minutes into her segment - on medical treatments for trans kids - to ask 11-year-old trans girl Josie Romero of Tucson, Arizona: “Do you feel trapped in the wrong body?”

Whenever this question is posed, I find it to be more of a leading statement rather than a true inquiry or invitation for a trans subject to speak about their life experience or outlook on their relationship with their bodies.

Whenever it’s posed it never sits well with me. And here’s why:

http://janetmock.com/2012/07/09/josie-romero-dateline-transgender-trapped-body/

I will be retiring xxboy this month

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 12:19:25 -0400

It will remain up and online forever (I even have it backed up should tumblr ever crash or anything else unthinkable happen) as an archive and a resource, and I will try to keep links active and whatnot, but I will no longer be updating it.

I’ve made this decision for a few reasons.

First and foremost, I’m moving and starting graduate school. I’ll be entering the doctoral program in counseling psychology at University of Louisville. I chose that program because not only is it a really strong program with wonderful students and faculty, but also because I will be working in the lab of Dr. Stephanie Budge, whose research focuses mainly on trans* and gender non-conforming people and their psychotherapy outcomes. Over the next 4-6 years, I will learn so much about psychology, will be trained in counseling, I will get a PhD, do some real work on understanding gender identity development and the impact of cis-normative messages on the gender identity development of trans youth, as well as work on developing intervention strategies through therapy and community/school-based methods. Additionally, I will emerge from the program with a license to practice therapy.
Second, I have stopped updating regularly anyway, as my personal life has become decreasingly trans- and gender-focused. Certainly my career and advocacy/activism lives will maintain this focus but I don’t spend my “free” time writing about these issues enough to maintain an active blog.
Third, there are a number of new(er) bloggers in the trans* community from various spectrums who are doing a great job and I feel totally confident leaving all of you and the many more of you to come in their capable hands.
Fourth, I’ve become entirely too google-able.

I’ll be working on two final posts for the next week or so about how we can be good allies to trans* people and the responsibility of people on the masculine spectrum (no matter what you were assigned at birth) to challenge our concepts of masculinity and maleness and assigned gender roles. These will be very important messages and are in response to a number of things.

Regarding the masculinity post, it will be my contribution to a mainly-tumblr-based discussion of trans* masculinity and male privilege that began after we learned that a prominent “spokesperson” for the transmasculine community practiced poor consent and had used power over his partners to coerce them into sexual activities (read as: he raped them).

The ally post is one I should have written long ago. I have received a lot of “how can I be a supportive friend to a trans* person?” and “how can I show that I’m a good trans* ally?” questions and have usually responded in simplistic and far-from-thorough ways. In reality, being a good ally and being a good friend involves actively working against cisgender privilege and following some very specific rules in addition to the more general guidelines of “accepting them as they are and giving them the space to figure everything out.” And unfortunately, I don’t know many cisgender people who are great allies to the trans* community. And I think even most of my friends don’t know or do the work they need to to be active allies. And then I think there are a number of people within the trans* community who practice cissexism on a regular basis and even more of us (I am so guilty of this) of slipping up from time to time. So this will be a crucial post that I hope will be circulated around, added to, commented on, shared, discussed, etc.

Running and writing xxboy has truly changed my life. I think it got me through some very difficult times in transition. I also got to know so many of you and that definitely changed my life for the better. And knowing that I was helping people, that I could help people, gave me the inspiration and motivation I needed to decided to go into Counseling Psychology and focus on working with trans* and gender non-conforming people (particularly youth). Thanks for sharing these experiences with me. I will maintain a twitter (will post the new handle soon) to keep anyone who is interested updated on my professional and advocate/activist life. And at some point in August, I will make a new page with a list of other blogs and online resources that will be active when xxboy becomes an archive. Much love

Justin Vivian Bond Turns Androgyny Into High Art - New York...

Sat, 30 Jun 2012 18:09:00 -0400

Justin Vivian Bond Turns Androgyny Into High Art - New York Times By MICHAEL SCHULMAN

Published: June 20, 2012

“I WAS having lunch with Rufus Wainwright,” said Justin Vivian Bond, arriving home a few minutes behind schedule. “I’m going to be officiating at his wedding. I was just confirmed. I’m now officially a reverend!”

“Reverend” may be one of the few titles that Bond, the shape-shifting chanteuse of the downtown cabaret scene, is comfortable with. In an online announcement last year, Bond adopted the prefix “Mx.” as a gender-neutral alternative to “Mr.” or “Ms.” And instead of “he” or “she,” the apropos pronoun would be “v.”

“I always thought of myself as a transgendered person,” said Bond, who is 49, lounging on a sofa in black capri pants and silver sandals. “I just lived my life and I didn’t really have the exact language for what I was.”

That act of semantic self-determination seems to have increased Bond’s creative output, too. The last year has seen a flurry of original recordings, lounge acts, exhibitions, music tours and a short memoir, “Tango,” about growing up in Maryland as a proto-glam “trans child” obsessed with Greta Garbo. Like Bond, the memoir is droll, pensive and filled with zingers teetering between funny and ferocious.

This spring, Bond starred in “Jukebox Jackie,” a play at La MaMa that paid tribute to the Warhol “superstar” Jackie Curtis; traveled to Vienna to sing at an AIDS charity ball; and is performing near Times Square to promote “Silver Wells,” the singer’s second album in two years.

While there are certainly other performers known for turning androgyny into high art, Bond has emerged as a kind of mother hen (make that gender-neutral parent fowl) to the city’s trans community, albeit with some reluctance.

“I find it frightening to think that other people are looking to me to speak for them,” Bond said. “What’s uniquely interesting about people who are transgender is this exploration of a truth that is not evident within the lexicon of society at large.”

That sense of searching wisdom underlies “Silver Wells,” a collection of melancholy covers. The title is a nod to the Joan Didion novel “Play It as It Lays.” Her image, along with Jean Genet’s, appears in shimmering dream-catchers in Bond’s living room, opposite a cartoonishly baroque vanity table, a gift from the children’s book author Ian Falconer.

Bond first read the novel at 15. “It was so stark and, in a way, depressing, but at the end she decides that nothing matters,” Bond said, referring to the book’s protagonist. “And there was something about living as this sort of undercover trans youth and reading that nothing mattered that I found to be very liberating.”

A similar winking nihilism was on display this month at 54 Below, a new cabaret space below the original Studio 54, where Bond is performing on Mondays through July 9. At the kickoff show, the performer, looking vampy in a borrowed Lanvin dress and blown-out strawberry-blond hair, paused between torch songs to reflect on growing older.

“I can’t believe Whitney Houston and I are the same age,” Bond purred. “Well, now I’m my age. She’s dead.”

The punky crowd laughed, and Bond, sensing a rambunctious mood, directed the accompanist to skip the next two ballads, both AIDS tributes. “Let’s just say we’re at Studio 54,” Bond said. “If you want an AIDS memory, take a deep breath.”

The joke was, in some sense, a callback to Kiki DuRane, Bond’s half of the twisted cabaret duo Kiki and Herb. Bond and the musician Kenny Mellman created the act in San Francisco in 1993, as a steely rejoinder to the plague that was decimating the city. They became an underground (and then above ground) sensation in New York, where they headlined Carnegie Hall and performed a Tony-nominated Broadway show.

But Bond grew tired of Kiki, a boozy millennia-old lounge singer, and shed the character in 2008, parting ways with Mr. Mellman. In an interview with New York magazine last year, Mr. Mellman said the two no longer speak. “When I was portraying Kiki, I had this character to hide behind,” Bond said, back at the apartment, a small East Village walk-up decorated like a fading Hollywood star’s boudoir. “Now I’m doing my own things, and it’s a little bit scarier.”

Bond’s living arrangement dictated the new album’s mise-en-scène. The performer’s old loft, above the grungy Mars Bar on Avenue A, was being demolished, sending Bond into temporary exile, not to mention the disorienting effect that came with beginning estrogen treatment.

“I started to really feel it around the same time that I was out of my house and on the road,” Bond said, ashing a cigarette into a garlic jar. “So my body was very adolescent, in a way, and I was living out of two suitcases.”

The songs (by the likes of Leonard Cohen, Ronee Blakley and Kurt Weill) have a theme of dislocation, and they acted as comfort food for Bond, who had also ended a five-year relationship with the singer Nathan (a k a Nath Ann) Carrera.

“I broke up with him on a Thursday and went into the studio to record this record on a Tuesday, so it had some bearing on it,” Bond said with a rueful laugh.

For now, the transitions (at least the obvious ones) are over. But at 54 Below, Bond was still navigating the uncharted. Introducing a doleful Kate Bush song, Bond said: “I don’t know what this song’s about, ladies and gentlemen. But I’ve attached my own meaning to it.”

[BTW, read my (and Annika’s) review of Tango at Autostraddle]

TRANSGENDER AND GENDER NONCONFORMING STUDENTS: YOUR RIGHTS AT SCHOOL

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 11:03:16 -0400

TRANSGENDER AND GENDER NONCONFORMING STUDENTS: YOUR RIGHTS AT SCHOOL

Abbe Land, Director of the Trevor Project explains why the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is important for LGBTQ Youth.

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 10:41:00 -0400

Abbe Land, Director of the Trevor Project explains why the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is important for LGBTQ Youth.:

In light of the breaking news that the Supreme Court has upheld the entirety of the ACA law (known to most as Obamacare), I thought it valuable to share Land’s article from yesterday’s Huff Post blog.

There are definite benefits to the ACA, especially for LGBTQ youth who suffer disproportionately from health disparities. For the first time, insurance companies will face new requirements that they provide coverage to youth up to 24 years of age under their parents’ insurance. Moreover, they cannot refuse coverage or raise rates due to preexisting conditions, including mental-health conditions. These sorts of coverage provisions make it much easier for LGBTQ youth to get access to medical and mental health care.

Just another of the many reasons to celebrate today’s ruling!

Abbe Land: Eye on the Prize: The Benefits of the Affordable Care Act for LGBTQ Youth

(Re)establishing a positive relationship with my body

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 10:14:00 -0400

There is a common theme within trans stories and histories of a person vs. their body narrative. Most obviously, there is the “trapped in the wrong body” narrative. Even for people who do not describe their trans experience as having been born in the wrong body, there is still a duality between person and body almost always present. For many of us, our bodies are the locus of our gender dysphoria. There are specific markers on our body that have made others prescribe us as one gender when we are so clearly (to ourselves at least) another. There are specific changes many of us hope to make to our bodies in order to feel whole, sane, and happy. Until those changes are made (and even after sometimes), there are constant struggles to modify how we present our bodies to the rest of the world. And sometimes there is a deep personal and internal shame about parts of our bodies. There are realities about our bodies that others use against us to fight our claims to whatever gender we truly are.

Our bodies do not define who and what we are. But society often disagrees and tries to give our bodies, or at least specific aspects of our bodies (chromosomes, secondary sex characteristics, genitalia, reproductive anatomy, hormones, etc.) the final say in what our gender and/or sex is. Consequently our bodies are often pitted against us in a battle of who gets to say we are women or men, both, something in between, or something altogether different. Even if we aren’t saying we are trapped in wrong bodies, most trans people are fighting or have fought with their bodies.

Alignment is a common term used in counseling and in making the case for medical transition. Most trans people identify their bodies as not aligned with their senses of self. As a result, I believe, few people with trans histories have positive relationships with our bodies. How can we respect or value something we are fighting against? Our bodies are not our temples. And even if you respect and value yourself, if you are trans, there is a good chance that “yourself” does not equate to or include “your body.”

Many trans people dissociate from their bodies. We avoid them, try to ignore them. At worst, we mutilate and self-harm. Most commonly, we are at least trying to hide them. I work with trans youth who have rejected programming related to physical movement as it draws personal attention to one’s own body. “I don’t like my body, I don’t feel comfortable in it and with it, so I don’t want to do something that involves it.” Consequently, there is a really serious lack of physical self-care among trans people. Particularly for those earlier in transition.

It is a vicious cycle, I think. In order to avoid the pain of the battle against our bodies (which we often interpret as a losing battle), we dissociate; we do not take care of our bodies and in avoiding them, we forfeit agency over them; feeling this increased control of our bodies over our person, we further dissociate, we give up any sort of body/person or body/mind integration, we avoid our bodies even more, we take less care of them, lose even more control over them, etc.

Here is what I propose (without research and only my own case study to present as evidence): If trans* people, particularly trans* youth, put effort into taking care of themselves physically, they would develop a sense of agency over their bodies and would feel less dysphoria and trauma, since much of that stems from the sense that our bodies have control over us.

I started taking care of my body on accident. After years of not. Before I knew I was trans, I cared very little about my body. I think I dissociated from it more then than even after I came out. I had terrible posture, I didn’t care about cleanliness or presentation (beyond pleasing the ppl around me), I had no desire to do anything physical or think about what I ate. I was not proud of my body and not interested in developing any pride in it. When I realized I was a man, or at least a boy, I became ashamed of my body and really wanted nothing to do with it. Testosterone and top surgery helped me feel more aligned and even proud. I began caring more about my presentation the more comfortable I felt with my body. But I still lacked a feeling of integration. My body was something I had shaped to fit my person, but it still wasn’t really part of my self.

Last July I was diagnosed with a gluten allergy. This forced a serious dietary change and required forethought about food. I started eating healthier and became more attuned to the physical feelings of being healthier. My diet quickly became rather healthy and now I take pride in making good decisions about food (even beyond the “hey don’t eat gluten” bit). I eat consciously and consider things like water intake, lean protein, carbs, food groups, caffeine and alcohol consuption, etc.

I have for a while wanted to start a workout plan. Not to be healthy but to bulk up. I wanted a more adult masculine body. I wanted to look like the men of GQ. I’ve started and quit a number of times. For Christmas, my best bud bought me “The Home Workout Bible” which is amazing. Earlier this year I developed a dumbbell-based workout, bought a year-long membership to a gym, and set in at the beginner level. In the beginning my workouts were based solely around gaining mass and I didn’t understand much about muscles and tendons and cardio, etc. As I started enjoying going to the gym, I did more reading, and I learned about how to take care of my muscle fibers and tendons, when cardio is appropriate and safe, and how to work out in a way that benefits my health as well as increasing my muscle mass. For the past three months, I have been going to the gym 3-5 times a week, with very specific and solid workouts and I feel great. I feel the effects. Increased physical stamina. Less general fatigue. Healthier immune system. Oh and I’ve decreased my fat and gained 15 pounds of muscle mass.

Through a healthier diet and very deliberate physical activity, I have increased my health, and started to shape my body myself, naturally. The changes that came from testosterone and surgery were amazing and much needed but there is only so much agency that one can feel from such external procedures. Nutrition and Exercise involve so much will power and agency. So by accident, I started caring about my body. And I developed a sense of agency. These days (or at least 95% of them) I feel great about my body, I am proud of it, proud of the work I’ve done. And I feel more like it is a part of me. The more integrated I feel (that is the more my body is a part of my self), the more comfortable I feel. And the more I want to take care of it. My body is becoming my temple. Or more than that. It’s becoming part of this person I love so much: myself!

Something our cis allies sometimes forget:

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 23:21:53 -0400

thedangerfox:

When people tell other people you’re trans*

That sucks.

The decision to disclose trans status and/or history is solely up to the individual with those experiences. PLEASE DO NOT DISCLOSE A PERSON’S TRANS STATUS OR HISTORY WITHOUT THEIR EXPLICIT PERMISSION TO DO SO.

This is swell! pussy-envy: just a quick break down of what cis...

Wed, 30 May 2012 17:14:25 -0400

This is swell!

pussy-envy:

just a quick break down of what cis means - if anything is incorrect hit me up

Your Y Chromosome Ain't Got Nothin On Me

My Research Lab Will Be at Philly Trans Health!

Final Push! - You have 2 days left to be a part of this study on post-transition identity

Lessons We Can (and Should) Learn from a Young Friend's Death

Does anyone have a reddit account with some cred?

XXBoy returns and he wants to research y'all! :) (PLEASE CIRCULATE/REBLOG/TWEET/FBOOK)

XXBoy returns and he wants to research y'all! :) (PLEASE CIRCULATE/REBLOG/TWEET/FBOOK)

The Top 10 Trans-Friendly Colleges and Universities | Advocate.com

Lost On Transition: A Request For Accurate and Respectful Reporting on Trans* People and Gender Diversity

"Not Cool, Bro": A Trans Guy's Relationship to and Critique of DudeBro Culture

Transition Positivity: The good things, little and big, in the transition experiences of trans* folk.

I am not female-bodied.

On Being 'Trapped' By My Body - And Reclaiming It

I will be retiring xxboy this month

Justin Vivian Bond Turns Androgyny Into High Art - New York...

Published: June 20, 2012

Read more here: http://transequality.org/news.html#ACASCOTUS2012

TRANSGENDER AND GENDER NONCONFORMING STUDENTS: YOUR RIGHTS AT SCHOOL

Abbe Land, Director of the Trevor Project explains why the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is important for LGBTQ Youth.

(Re)establishing a positive relationship with my body

Something our cis allies sometimes forget:

This is swell! pussy-envy: just a quick break down of what cis...