Deeniquia Dodds, transgender woman, shot dead in D.C.

Police are investigating the death of a 22-year-old transgender woman of color, identified as Deeniquia Dodds, who died Wednesday night after she was shot in Washington, D.C., on the Fourth of July, a local television station WRC reported. Joeann Lewis, who raised Dodds, told WRC that she was a “beautiful person” who “loved to make you laugh.” Why police are not yet investigating it as a hate crime.

How parental support can make a world of difference for a trans* youth. Learn more. Retweet. Share on Facebook.

It shouldn’t even be a question if parental support is a factor in the health and wellbeing of trans youth.

This LGBT gym is helping clients shape their bodies to match their identities

At the Perfect Sidekick, group classes begin with participants sharing their names and preferred pronouns. Instead of gender-segregated change rooms, there’s one big locker room open to folks of all gender identities. The gym’s staff is required to attend regular sensitivity training. In other words, it provides the opposite kinds of experiences queer people might have at mainstream gyms.

Oversharing here, but I have to make a point.

Puberty is such a bad time for people to be exposed to Tumblr’s ideologies about gender.

I’m glad that when I was 14 and uncomfortable with my body (to the point where I verbally claimed that I wished I was a boy, was disgusted by the idea of growing boobs, and angered by the thought of having to wear a bra) I had responsible adults to tell me that being uncomfortable with physical changes in your body at puberty is a NORMAL and natural part of life; instead of having Tumblr to tell me that I was dissatisfied with my physical form because I was actually a genderqueer demiboy or something like that.

This is transphobic.

This isn’t tranphobia at all. It doesn’t intend to minimize the issues of transgender people at all. To call such a statement transphobic is the equivalent to agreeing to the idea that anyone who has any soft of anxiety about their body is transgender which is simply not true.

Subscribing to such a belief leads to the harm of actual trans people.

Imagine if some people who had a normal amount of anxiety over their body began identifying transgender and then a few years later retracted this statement and (rightfully) called it a phase (of anxiety over a changing body).

How does this affect trans people? On a broad scale it gives the impression to the general public that trans people are going through a phase, or in more general terms, that their gender identity is illegitimate.

It is VERY well possible that people can falsely identify as transgender under the premise of uncomfortable development during puberty.

To call this person transphobic for simply stating that some people may misconstrue awkward puberty growth adjustments for legitimate gender dysphoria damages the transgendered community.

Learn what actual transphobia is before labelling something as transphobic and please think before ignorantly commenting on trans issues regardless of your gender identity.

Thank you and have a blessed day.

The continually inspiring magic of HRT. Live your truth!

This makes me so fucking happy

You need dysphoria to be trans

 You need dysphoria to be trans. You need dysphoria to be trans. You need dysphoria to be trans. 

I cannot stress this enough.

You don’t like stereotypical boy/girl things? Cool, congratulations. You’re still not trans. You want to wear boy/girl clothes? Cool, you’re still not trans.

Checklist for being trans:

[  ] Dysphoria with the sex you are born with

Jesus Christ. Being trans isn’t just a game of dress up. 

Chelsea Manning just called out Caitlyn Jenner as “the Grinch” who stole the trans movement. And based on some of Jenner’s recent behavior, Manning may not be wrong.

RAD saves lives by letting trans folks where to find safe and comprehensive care. By the community, for the community, RAD is designed around the needs of the trans community. There are currently over 3,000 providers and more are being added everyday.

Help us save lives. RAD is completely volunteer run and has minimal external funding. Your support is vital. RAD’s crowdfunding campaign ends Tuesday, midnight.

Donate now at bit.ly/radremedy

Venezuela just elected South America’s first-ever transgender Congresswoman, Tamara Adrian

The highway where Leelah Alcorn committed suicide has now been dedicated to her memory. Largely thanks to the effort of a 33-year-old gay ally who refused to see her memory go out.

PASS THIS ON.

The first transgender suicide hotline is now up and running in the U.S. You can reach Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860.

Autism and Gender Binaries

Autism and Gender Binaries

Content note: Citations for this contain outdated language and a distressing lack of understanding of nonbinary and trans individuals.

Introduction

Scroll through article after article on gender differences in autism. They all firmly place autism research in a gender binary. Research on autistic girls and women is growing slowly, but the research operates based on a binary understanding of gender. It puts men and women with XY and XX assumptions. This leaves out people who are nonbinary, intersex, and/or transgender.

What is the gender binary?

The gender binary is a system in which there are only two genders, man and woman. Many people follow this logic. They assume that everyone is their gender assigned at birth, or are cisgender.

But many people are not actually the gender assigned to them at birth. They can be outside the gender binary, or nonbinary – not a man or woman, or shifting between multiple gender states. They can be intersex – and at birth, doctors usually decide the baby is a boy or girl, following the gender binary. They can be transgender, which means a person is not the gender assigned to them at birth.

What does autism have to do with it?

Many autistic people are not within the gender binary. Many are nonbinary, trans, and/or intersex. Unlike many of these people, people see their autism as invalidating being nonbinary or trans. In 2011, Simon Baren-Cohen, an autism researcher, posited after studies:

This is a complete invalidation of an autistic person being trans. It is true that autistic cisgender girls are often gender-nonconforming due to being different. But autistic trans boys and men definitely exist, and should not be invalidated because they are autistic.

The studies don’t take into account this

Studies do not tend to take into account, when studying autistic girls and women, the experiences of trans women. Nor do they tend to acknowledge that probably many of the people they are labeling girls and women in fact are outside the gender binary. 

There are also few studies pertaining to autistic people and being outside the gender binary. Studies have shown that autistic people are more prone to gender dysphoria; authors of an article also acknowledge “an obvious challenge to our understanding of gender in ASD is the small number of existing reports and studies.”ii

Wake-up call? Yes.

Why is this a feminist issue?

This is a feminist issue because feminists should acknowledge the different struggles of autistic or other neurodivergent individuals to have their rightful gender recognized. The invalidations autistic people face with gender should be fought against. 

i      Jones, R. M., Wheelwright, S., Farrell, K., Martin, E., Green, R., Di Ceglie, D., & Baron­Cohen, S. (2011). Brief report: Female­to­male transsexual people and autistic traits. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 42, 301­306

ii    Van Schalkwyk, G. I., Klingensmith, K., & Volkmar, F. R. (2015). Gender Identity and Autism Spectrum Disorders . The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, 88(1), 81–83.

water is wet

The Pope dabbles in Catholicism.

You can breathe oxygen

Number Crunch: Transgender