The Latest TikTok - 1 Key To Unlock The Hidden History of the Pharaoh Hatshepsut

I'm excited to continue this series on TikTok with this 15 second celebration of Hatshepsut!

@leewind Over 22 years of ruling Egypt, Hatshepsut transitioned their public persona from female to male. ##queerhistoryiseverywhere ##queer ##historybuff ##pride
♬ Me Too part 2 - Meghan Trainor

The Key

The remarkable thing is that these three statues are ALL Hatshepsut. At the beginning of their reign, as regent for their 2 year old nephew, Hatshepsut was portrayed publicly as a woman. Seven years into their rule, they declared themself KING (senior Co-King, technically), and not daughter of their father but son of their father. There was a period of time where Hatshepsut's gender transitioned to an in-between state, both in terms of dress and body shape (men's clothes, no shirt, and not quite breasts or bare chest, in the center sculpture). And then, towards the end of their 22-year rule, Hatshepsut was portrayed completely as a man, with a man's physique and a beard!

I loved learning about Hatshepsut, and think how empowering it must be for gender-queer, gender non-conforming, and trans kids today to know that thousands of years ago (Hatshepsut ruled Egypt from 1479 BCE-1458 BCE) the ruler of Egypt completely transitioned their public display of gender over two decades!

The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you,
Lee

The Truth Is - A 15-Year-Old Latina Dates A Trans Guy, Exploring Love, Identity, and Self-Worth

The Truth Is by NoNieqa Ramos

Fifteen-year-old Verdad doesn't think she has time for love. She's still struggling to process the recent death of her best friend, Blanca; dealing with the high expectations of her hardworking Puerto Rican mother and the absence of her remarried father; and keeping everyone at a distance. But when she meets Danny, a new guy at school--who happens to be trans--all bets are off. Verdad suddenly has to deal with her mother's disapproval of her relationship with Danny as well as her own prejudices and questions about her identity, and Danny himself, who is comfortable in his skin but keeping plenty of other secrets.

This novel was named one of the best YA Latinx books of 2019 by Remezcla and HipLatina. Add your review of "The Truth Is" in comments!

Super Late Bloomer: Early Days in Transition - A YA Trans Comic Memoir

Super Late Bloomer: Early Days in Transition by Julia Kaye

Instead of a traditional written diary, Julia Kaye has always turned to art as a means of self-reflection. So when she began her gender transition in 2016, she decided to use her popular webcomic, Up and Out, to process her journey and help others with similar struggles realize they weren’t alone.

Julia’s poignant, relatable comics honestly depict her personal ups and downs while dealing with the various issues involved in transitioning—from struggling with self-acceptance and challenging societal expectations, to moments of self-love and joy. Super Late Bloomer both educates and inspires, as Julia faces her difficulties head-on and commits to being wholly, authentically who she was always meant to be.

You can watch this episode of Nerd Out with Jessie Gender where Julia spoke with Jessie about the web comic and the book, as well “the forgotten nuances and everyday struggles of transitions that are never discussed by the general public, as well as what it means to be transgender once you finish the major steps in your transition.”

Add your review of "Super Late Bloomer: Early Days in Transition" in comments!

Today is Trans Day of Resilience 2019 - Celebrate With Trans Art and Poetry "to Uplift Black Trans Power and Liberation!"

This is really wonderful! Re-naming the "Transgender Day of Remembrance" to the "Trans Day of Resilience" is smart and important - words have power!

From the press release:

Led by Forward Together, a national women of color-led organization, whose mission is to unite communities to win rights, recognition and resources for all families, the TDOR art project acknowledges how violence disproportionately impacts trans people of color. The art project simultaneously uses visual art and poetry to uplift trans power and resilience. Trans artists and poets of color are telling their own stories of resistance, hope and liberation.

“Forward Together is honored to present this project to the world for the sixth year in a row,” said Micah Bazant, Forward Together Artist in Residence. “At a time when white supremacy and anti-trans oppression are killing trans women of color, we offer this art to share our vision of trans freedom. Trans communities of color have always existed and have always used art to survive. As the government tries to erase trans people from laws and policies, art and culture are especially critical. There is no way to erase the beauty and power of trans resistance.”

Some highlights:

I'm cheering for Black Trans power and liberation!

View and read more of the art and poetry here.

The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you,
Lee

Paula Stone Williams' Powerful TEDx Talk to Help Us All Be Better Allies to Trans Women and to ALL Women

I'm happy to share this with you all, "I've lived as a man and a woman -- here's what I've learned" by Paula Stone Williams.



I hope it resonates for you, too.

The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you,
Lee

Actor Michael D. Cohen Comes Out in TIME as Being Part of the Trans Community

He plays Schwoz in Nickelodeon's longest running live-action sitcom, Henry Danger. He's instantly recognizable to a whole generation of young people. And in this Time Magazine article by Katy Steinmetz , Michael D. Cohen just came out as having, nearly two decades ago, transitioned his body from female to male to match the male gender that he always identified as being.

"I identify as male, and I am proud that I have had a transgender experience – a transgender journey." —Michael D. Cohen

And Michael is SO funny.

When asked about how it’s been having the name Michael Cohen lately, for instance, he says that he’s had it: “I’m thinking of changing my name to Paul Manafort.”

Towards making people understand that Trans people are just people like everyone else, this is a big deal.

I'm so glad Michael has come out so publicly, I can't wait to see his one-man show, “4 Cubits Make a Man,” and I hope you'll join me in cheering him on!

The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you,
Lee

Bunnybear - A Picture Book About Being Your Authentic Self (And Finding Your Place In The World) That I Wish Had Been Read To Me When I Was A Little Kid

Bunnybear by Andrea J. Loney, Illustrated by Carmen Saldaña

Although Bunnybear was born a bear, he feels more like a bunny. He prefers bouncing in the thicket to tramping in the forest, and in his heart he's fluffy and tiny, like a rabbit, instead of burly and loud, like a bear. The other bears don't understand him, and neither do the bunnies. Will Bunnybear ever find a friend who likes him just the way he is?

From the moment Bunnybear sees the group of bunnies and I read the line,

“They were tiny, and fluffy, and bouncy, like Bunnybear's heart.” 

This picturebook captured my heart.

The wonderful Bunnybear

Bunnybear's story is told with such love, and respect.

This book is a powerful way to let gender-expansive, gender non-conforming, and transgender children know that they are not alone, and that there is a loving place for them in the larger community.

And this book is also so important for cis-gendered children (and adults!) to help them recognize that not everyone who looks like they are a specific gender really is a person who identifies with that gender. Just like Bunnybear looks like a bear, but feels like a bunny on the inside. And Grizzlybun looks like a bunny, but feels like a bear on the inside.

I'm excited for Grizzlybun to have a story of their own someday. And until then, I'm so grateful that Bunnybear is here for all of us to read and share...

Bunnybear was included on the ALA's 2018 Rainbow List! You can add your review of "Bunnybear" in comments!

A Fine Bromance - A Trans Teen and an Asexual Teen navigate friendship, identities, and a mystery

A Fine Bromance by Christopher Hawthorne Moss

Robby is a senior in high school when he meets new student Andy. Robby's never experienced sexual attraction, and while that doesn't change, something about Andy makes him feel relaxed, and it turns out they have a lot in common. Neither of them fits in very well, and Robby soon learns through the school's bullies that Andy is a transboy. Sticking together makes life better for both of them.

Then some of Robby's Aunt Ivy's jewelry turns up missing, and Robby and Andy must investigate to discover who's to blame.

Add your review of "A Fine Bromance" in comments!

TRANS/gressive: How Transgender Activists Took on Gay Rights, Feminism, the Media & Congress... and Won! - Essential Reading

TRANS/gressive: How Transgender Activists Took on Gay Rights, Feminism, the Media & Congress... and Won! by Riki Wilchins

In the early 1990s, no one talked about transgender people, and no one knew one. We were not on TV or in movies. What formed the visible part of the transcommunity – overwhelmingly white, urban, and middle class – was also overwhelmingly focused on conferences, surgery or hormones and cisgender acceptance.

This was still a determinedly non-political population, often in defensive crouch because it was also constantly under attack by the media, police, local legislatures, feminists and even LGB-but-never-T advocates.

We were a group that still thought of ourselves as a collection of separate individuals, not a movement. What made political consciousness so difficult was that there was no "transgender section” of town, where we saw each other regularly.

And mainstream society mostly ignored us. And when it didn’t, it usually made clear it despised us. We were freaks. We were gendertrash.

We lived in a transient and indoor community that knew itself only a few days at a time during conferences at hotels out on the interstate.

But all that was about to change.

Even when politics are avoided, bringing despised and marginalized people together is itself a political act. Without realizing or intending it, the community was reaching critical mass.

Even in those pre-Internet, pre-cellphone days, enough transpeople were running into one another often enough to begin realizing we could be a force, that we didn’t really need cisgender acceptance. What we needed was our civil rights.

This is the inside story of how in just a few years, a handful of trans activists would come together in the face of enormous difficulties and opposition to launch from the very margins of society what would grow into the modern political movement for gender rights.

Add your review of "TRANS/gressive: How Transgender Activists Took on Gay Rights, Feminism, the Media & Congress... and Won!" in comments!

Is My Cis Privilege Showing?

I've been thinking about my signature block when I send an email.

Yeah, I know. That sounds pretty self-involved.

But it's sort of the email equivalent of a name tag. And more and more, when I'm going to LGBTQ-inclusive, LGBTQ-sensitive events, I don't just put my name, "Lee," I'm also asked to share my personal gender pronoun (or PDP). I put He/Him/His under my name, and that's been that.

Only... I recently got an email from someone who had, after their name in the signature block, their pronouns. And I starting thinking... Should I do the same?

Given that I look like a guy, and my pronouns are the guy ones, would it just be perceived as me flaunting my cis privilege?

But as I dug deeper into why I maybe should do it, I came up with three better reasons:

1. To acknowledge there are other options besides the binary cis vision of gender.

2. To present the idea that someone who presents as a guy might not feel the "guy" pronouns works for them.

3. It's a way to for me to communicate to people living their lives outside cis-normative gender boundaries that I am their ally.

And I'm all about being an Ally.

So now, my signature block reads:

Lee Wind, M.Ed.
pronouns: he/him/his

and then the rest.

How about you? Would you consider adding your pronouns to your signature, and maybe even your social media profiles, as a sign of ally-ship for the Trans and gender non-conforming community?

The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you,
Lee


ps: because most cis people don't know what "PGP," or personal gender pronouns, stands for, I've gone with the simpler "pronouns" followed by a colon.

pps: need a refresher on "cis" versus "trans" in regards to gender? Check out episode 4 of Gender 101.

Survivor Contestant Zeke Writes About Being Outed As Trans

While I've long since stopped watching Survivor, I thought this piece by Zeke Smith, about his experience on the show, and his being outed as trans by a desperate gay contestant, was important.

This line in particular really shouted out at me:

"Many gay people consider coming out a moment of liberation, because sharing their sexual orientation with the world causes them to be seen more authentically. Often, the opposite is true for trans people. When we share our gender history, many see us less authentically — doubting, probing or denying our identities."

And when he describes the moment he was outed, it's a moment of violence, of cruelty, of inciting "bigotry toward a marginalized minority."

And then Zeke wrote this:

But in calling me deceptive, Varner invoked one of the most odious stereotypes of transgender people, a stereotype that is often used as an excuse for violence and even murder. In proclaiming “Zeke is not the guy you think he is” and that “there is deception on levels y’all don’t understand,” Varner is saying that I’m not really a man and that simply living as my authentic self is a nefarious trick. In reality, by being Zeke the dude, I am being my most honest self — as is every other transgender person going about their daily lives.

It's a powerful moment of a transgender man sharing his story in his own words... and well worth reading.

Here's the link to Zeke's column in the Hollywood Reporter.

And my thanks to Zeke for sharing his story. Hopefully it will help all of us who aren't Trans be better Allies to individual Trans people and the Trans community!

A Mother and her 8-year-old Trans Son talk, and we get to listen

This under-three-minute video was powerful, and heartbreaking, and beautiful...



Let's make this a safer world for Gabe!

And my thanks to Chris and Gabe for sharing your story with all of us.

Alok Vaid-Menon: Gender Selfie-Determination

This hour and fifteen minute lecture by Alok Vaid-Menon at the Annenberg Space for Photography is brilliant, and thought-provoking, and very moving.

Some highlights:

On speaking of themselves and fellow Trans and gender non-conforming people, Alok says,

"the reason we are punished is not because we are different but rather because people recognize a part of themselves in us that they had to destroy in order to get here."

and

"There are as many genders as there are people in the world."

"I am not actually gender non-conforming. You only see me as such because you are filtering my image through your gender binary."

"You are not who you look like, you are who you are."

"When we're talking about being tortured in the streets and you call us beautiful..." means you see us as "walking portraits and not actually as people."

and

"I'm fighting to be recognized as a person, but we exist in a culture right now where trans people are not people."

Alok's talk is important and, as a starting point, I wish every GSA would watch and discuss. I encourage you to watch and discuss it as well!

The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you,
Lee

A Revised Birth Announcement For A Trans Teen

This was so wonderful, to see the love with which Kal's family embraces their child! The story is from 2014, but I'm just catching up to it now.

The clipping reads:

A RETRACTION - BOGERT -
In 1995 we announced the arrival of our sprogget, Elizabeth Anne, as a daughter. He informs us that we were mistaken. Oops! Our bad. We would now like to present, our wonderful son - Kal Bogert.
Loving you in the easiest thing in the world. Tidy your room.

So powerful and, as a parent – as a human being – inspiring. You can read more about the story here.

The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you,
Lee

Magician and Comedian Justin Willman explains everything you need to know about Trans and Gender NonConforming people using bathrooms in under 2 minutes

This is brilliant.

It does have one sexual reference in it, so if that's off-putting for you, just read the article instead.

Having said that, the video is funny and, yeah - brilliant:




Justin, you have new fan!

The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you,
Lee

The journey of Transgender Model Tracey Africa Norman

What an amazing story!




Read more about Tracey and her being brought back as a Clairol model in this NY Mag The Cut article by By Jada Yuan here.

Thanks to my awesome husband for the heads-up on this one.

Jon Stewart On Caitlyn Jenner (and the sexism of our media)

I thought this moment from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart was great:

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook,Daily Show Video Archive

Caitlyn is incredibly brave.

And Jon Stewart is awesome, for pointing out what women are faced with in our culture every day.

Geena Rocero's TED Talk: Why I Must Come Out

Fashion model Geena Rocero explains about her journey, and how the first time she saw a professional shot photo of herself in a bikini was only the beginning of a journey that led to her coming out in this TED talk.

It's quite powerful and beautiful...

Gender 101 Episode #34 Redux: Lucy, Nenu, Emmi and B J on the "T" in GLBT

Our Gender-Queer friend Lucy (a.k.a. Benji) talks with Nenu, Emmi and B J about how Transgender and Gender Queer people are treated within the "Gay Community," both by individuals and organizations.

It's a fascinating discussion...



My thanks to Lucy, Nenu, Emmi and B J for sharing so openly about their experiences!

You can find the original posting here.

Gender 101, Episode 30 Redux: B J on Role Models, Hiding and Healing

Benji (a.k.a. Lucy) continues the conversation about gender with B J. B J shares about their search for gender non-conforming Role Models, and their own journey.

It's a little longer than most of the Gender 101 videos at thirteen and a half minutes, but worth the time!



As B J said about doing this video,

"Even if one person finds something at all worth taking from it, it's worth it"

Absolutely.

Thank you B J, for sharing so honestly.

You can check out the original posting here.

Namaste,
Lee