Results for: be the change
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Change Is Magic: On Cooking and Bodies
Science fiction taught me that any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic. In the kitchen, my girlfriend is a witch.
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Transition Is Allowed To Feel Bad Sometimes
Realistically, I understand that if you do something for 11 months, the chance that you’ll feel good for every second of those 11 months is zero.
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What Drag Has Taught Me
Every time I have gotten the opportunity to do mediocre drag as a beginner, I have had some of the most fun a person can have.
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The Trans Body as a Work of Art
Burlesque is my loving manifestation of what all my ancestors deserved—not simply tolerance, but unbridled celebration.
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Gender Fluidity and the Black Atlantic
I always wonder what words my ancestors had for someone like me. In embracing my genderfluid identity, I’ve found great comfort in the deep and wide of the Atlantic — the way the water connects me to kin, named or unknown.
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This Is an Essay About Penises
“I spent years not thinking about my penis — or, at least, thinking about it as little as possible. After I transitioned, my penis became the most important part of my body — at least, to other people.”
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Trans Radiance: What’s in a Name?
For this piece, I talked to some trans women about their names and their experiences changing them legally (or choosing not to), as well as a couple of the incredible organizations attempting the make the process more accessible to all of us.
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Trans Fiction, Trans Imagination: I Will Answer Your Questions, If You Listen Closely
You want to know where you came from, is that it? Do not be embarrassed. Nature did not see motherhood in me, either.
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Scenes from a Gender 02: Illustrated Moments of Trans Womanhood
“I have a question!” she exclaims. Stepmom knows where this is going so she tries to head her off, but the child will not be dissuaded. “My question is,” — here it comes — “… are you transgender?” No one knows what to say, me included.
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What Self-Quarantine is Teaching Me About Gender Dysphoria
Three weeks ago I began my Coronavirus self-quarantine. Faced with the reality that I wouldn’t see anyone, I started an experiment. I wasn’t going to shave, paint my nails, or put on makeup — until I wanted to, for myself.
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How Leslie Feinberg Changed Our Lives: The Autostraddle Roundtable
“I could feel the power that came from being butch, the paradox of growing up a girl and then becoming the suited partner of a beautiful woman, the torture of being such a social outcast, and the deep craving hunger for being accepted.”
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What We Mean When We Say “Femme”: A Roundtable
We now live in a world where it is totally possible to claim the same word as someone else and completely disagree on what the word means.
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On Performing in The Vagina Monologues When You Don’t Have a Vagina
“There’s an annoying song that’s only playing all the way through all day long on some days. Others, I can barely hear the chorus, and others I can’t hear it all. But every day, I know that that song will be there again one day, maybe even tomorrow, maybe even later that same day. And I hate this song.”
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Skydiving in Two Genders: An Essay on Trans Visibility
“I decide I’ll test the durability of a BB cream by Tarte at thousands of feet in the air, then feel ashamed at worrying so much about how I look, then feel the dread again, that all this might go completely wrong, not because I’ll fall to my death, but because I’ll be reduced to my past.”
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Making the Dive and Loving Myself Dangerously
“But, like embracing the woman I am, I couldn’t stay back from the allure of the waves. The pull of my trans-ness and queerness, of course, would always be stronger, the strongest impulses I have ever known. The sea, like them, was a place that represented a kind of forbidden love. I needed to overcome my fears or I would feel that I was holding myself back from living authentically.”
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The Army Taught Me That I Can Change My Body (And It Will Still Be Mine)
Here’s the deal: I both like and am my body. I am a girl, ergo I have a girl’s body. It’s neat. You know what I think helped me to be comfortable with my body more than anything else? The US Army.
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This Is Because I’m A Woman: How Sexual Harassment Invaded My Life (And Some Ways to Respond To It)
“I once had a life where I could go blocks, miles, months without a stranger standing in my way, saying, ‘Hey girl, where you goin’ in such a hurry?’ I want to take my personal space bubble to the shop and have it re-inflated to its original size, but that chapter of my life seems to be done.”
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Identity Theft: A Trans* Intersex Woman On Traumas and Surgery
“It’s unfortunate, unfair and illogical that intersex people get assigned a gender and a sex and are expected to either stick with them or fix someone else’s mistake with expensive, risky surgery on their genitals.”
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The Incredibly True Story Of How Cissexism Made My Same-Sex Marriage Legal
Thanks to a simple governmental regulation, my wife and I were able to exploit a legal loophole and obtain a federally recognized marriage.
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How Finding My Korean Mother Gave Me the Courage to Transition
“I am an adoptee,” I explained through my tears. “I need to find my parents. I have waited all my life for this moment. I’m supposed to leave tomorrow, but I can’t go without knowing my family is fine. Please help me!”