Leelah Alcorn and LGBTQ Teenage Suicide

Perhaps I’m cynical, but sometimes it feels like there’s a cycle. One or more LGBTQ teens kill themselves, the media has their heyday, people get up in arms for a few weeks, and then we all return to our lives. Until the news cycle catches wind of another heart wrenching story.

Nothing, however, ever really changes. Or the changes don’t ripple far enough to save troubled teens like Leelah. This article by Mintpress News compares the rash of deaths of transgender individuals to a genocide, highlighting its rampant and violent nature.

Every year we celebrate the Transgender Day of Remembrance, but does the list of names ever really get smaller? And that list doesn’t take into account the transgender individuals whose lives were lost due to violence against themselves, like Leelah’s.

Review: Kate Bornstein is a Queer and Pleasant Danger

Many people probably recognize Kate Bornstein’s name from her books, including Gender Outlaw and My (New) Gender Workbook. She was also the second woman to ever receive a degree from Brown University. An author, performance artist, gender theorist, activist, and self-proclaimed trans-dyke, Bornstein has been an inspiration to many in the gender non-conforming community for […]

Review: Kumu Hina

Frameline award-winning Kumu Hina (“Teacher Hina”) is a new documentary by directors Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson. Hamer and Wilson previously worked together on Out in the Silence, a film about LGBTQ individuals in rural America, and the discrimination and bigotry they often face. It was during an Out in the Silence screening in Hawaii […]

Book Review: Testo Junkie

Beatriz Preciado’s Testo Junkie is half theoretical treatise on gender, half performative autobiography. Preciado self-administered doses of black market testosterone for a year, chronicling its effects on her body and psyche. Preciado did this without the intention to use the hormones as an aid for transitioning from female to male, meaning her actions were technically […]

Book Review: Excluded

I was excited to read Julia Serano’s Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive. I touched on exclusion in my Master’s thesis on queer utopian communities, as well as experiencing it first-hand during all of my time participating in the LGBTQ community as a bisexual femme. It’s an important issue that I firmly believe […]

In Defense of “Ladies”

This article recently popped up in my newsfeed on Facebook. I’ve had mixed feelings about it ever since. Believe me, I know “ladies” is problematic. I know I’m not a “lady,’ strictly speaking. Technically, I think “ladies” are those people who play nice with the patriarchy – who don’t stir up too much trouble, who keep […]