Trans* Talk: Trans* Storytelling
I think Trans* people should be in control of their own stories the same way I believe that any community should be in control of their own stories. This isn’t to say that other writers can’t include Trans* characters in their stories—they absolutely should—but that Trans* folks should be the ones to own the Trans* narrative. We should decide what is an authentic recounting of our own experiences. No one else knows the experience like we do, and when others take over our stories, they tell it wrong, boiling down the Trans* experience to stereotypes: focusing on surgery, making their Trans* characters completely androgynous, or minimizing the experiences of dysphoria.
Trans* Talk: Bathroom Bills
I began following a case titled Doe v. State of South Carolina, in which an anonymous transgender teenager (referred to only as John Doe) is challenging South Carolina’s state law which prohibits students of the opposite sex to enter changing rooms, restrooms, and other private facilities of one sex. This law, South Carolina’s Proviso 1.120, affects all students in public Pre-K through high schools, denying Trans* students the right to use the bathroom that corresponds to their identity. John Doe, who is entering 9th grade this year, has rallied the support of his family and the Alliance for Full Acceptance (AFFA), a local LGBTQ+ advocacy group.
