Transgender Day of Visibility

[ysabetwordsmith]

March 31 is the International Transgender Day of Visibility.  Learn about transfolk and read a FAQ list.  There are ways you can support a transgender friend and promote trans equality.

See a list of my QUILTBAG characters.  In particular:  The Blueshift Troupers can change sex/gender.  Frankenstein's Family, Schrodinger's Heroes and The Steamsmith have trans* and/or genderqueer main characters.  Polychrome Heroics has several scattered throughout multiple threads, of which Calliope has a subpage.

Do you have favorite books or other resources about gender diversity?  Got a personal story to tell?  Feel free to share them here.  This is safe space for discussing sex/gender dynamics.

Comments

[thnidu]

Not really, but here is something somewhat relevant that just happened to me in the past week or so. My synagogue (Reconstructionist) currently has an interim rabbi and three applicants for the permanent position, including the interim rabbi. We – that is, the congregants in general – will have a major voice in the decision, so each of the candidates is spending a weekend here, leading several services and events and interacting with us in other ways.

For each candidate, the Board is emailing out a description of their background, interests, activities, and so on. The first candidate, for instance, has been a prison chaplain for some eight years. I found him very engaging and intelligent, but after one of the events I remarked to the friends I was talking with on his remarkably youthful appearance and stature, maybe a decade less than his actual age: not a negative, just an observation. Later, rereading the mailing, I had a "D'ohhh!" moment: I had simply skimmed over and made little or nothing of the fact that he's transsexual.

Wow!

[ysabetwordsmith]

That's fascinating. Thanks for sharing.

My evening

[ng_moonmoth]

Got a chance to set up a dinner outing with a trans woman friend of mine, going as myself. Unfortunately, the restaurant she picked was closed for the day, and she ran out of spoons before being able to meet me at her next choice restaurant :-(

I was really looking forward to a chance to do something commonplace in an accepting environment. We'll hope for another opportunity soon.

Re: My evening

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Alas! I hope you get to do that soon.

I tend to grade restaurants on their food accommodation skills. I eat so little, and have to leave out some ingredients, that it causes issues. People who beef about it make me never come back there. Fuck 'em. People who bring an extra plate because my partner and I are splitting an entree, or take the original amount of food and plate it separately, get a bigger tip. I've had people be amazingly helpful, and incredibly awful.

For me the gender thing is less of an issue simply because it's less obvious at a casual glance. But I usually won't go back somewhere that disses a friend -- or even if I see it happening at a stranger's table. A place whose staff beefs over one issue is all too likely to cause a problem over some other issue a different time, and I have way too many freak friends to risk it.

[purpurealuna.livejournal.com]

I actually wrote this one, the first party in the journey of a young, transgender man in New England. I'm working on the sequel now.

http://www.amazon.com/Linon-Tavern-Collection-3-Piece-Table/dp/B002USUJV0/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_sims?ie=UTF8

Yay!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Go you! I'm glad to see more people writing these topics.