Struggling to Write Outside a Colonial Framework
Trans Is Beautiful: Laverne Cox on the Work of Self: Love
My Very Special Abilities: How My Disability Made Me Flexible
It is normalcy that creates disability. In a world where an inability to see is the norm, blind people are not disabled.
Read more at OFF-BEAT for Medium
Why Tomorrow Will Be Different for the Transgender Community
If “Tomorrow Will Be Different” provides a vision for a future of trans equality, I hope it will be one in which the dignity of transgender individuals is not up to cisgender arbiters for approval.
Read more in The New York Times
On Learning to Appreciate Your Roots
I always viewed Japanese and Philippine cultures as existing in entirely separate spheres, until I was well on my way to Kyoto: I looked out the window, and saw the same familiar rice paddies I grew up with back home.
Read more at Condé Nast Traveler
We've Always Been Nasty: Why the Feminist Movement Needs Trans Women and Femmes
We should not be afraid to throw a brick if a brick needs to be thrown. There are times when a single instance of violence is a justifiable response to pervasive and encompassing oppression by the state.
Read more at them.
I Don't Miss Being a Gay Man, But I Miss Having Sex Like One
Why can't sex as a woman be as effortless as it was before I transitioned?
Read more at VICE
Search Algorithms Kept Me from My Sister for 14 Years
It was because of the letter K that I found my younger sister, but for 14 years, it was also the letter K that kept us apart.
Read more at WIRED
Why Can't My Famous Gender-Nonconforming Friends Get Laid?
Nonbinary femmes are too masc for the straights, too femme for the gays, and too out for nearly everyone else.
Read more at VICE
How the Internet Gave Mail-Order Brides Power
Rural Filipinas have flipped the dating script: Now they’re the ones shopping for Western men.
Read more at WIRED
Being Trans, and an Immigrant, Under Trump
I anticipate that transgender Americans may not simply face legal obstacles, but also the possibility that the people charged with providing federal services may openly despise them, and feel no compunction in expressing their hostility given the president’s own antipathy towards minorities.
Read more at The Atlantic
Queer Culture in the Age of Transgender Disruption
At a time when many queers have signaled their desire for mainstream acceptability, it has been trans people who have carried forth the mantle of radical queerness, both personally and politically.
Read more at VICE
Unerased: Counting Transgender Lives
A comprehensive look at transgender murders since 2010. The number is rising — and likely far higher than we know.
Read more at Mic
On Trans Day of Remembrance, We Must Do Much More than Remember
Those who sacrificed their lives to be who they are — the vast majority trans women of color and gender-nonconforming femmes — were not passive victims to be remembered and mourned. They were fighters and rebels who challenged the norms of our society, their communities and often their families.
Read more at Mic
This Is How Queer People In Orlando Are Mourning After The Pulse Shooting
In the days after the Pulse massacre, performers in Orlando’s LGBT club scene were recovering from trauma and mourning their friends. But because people have flocked to Orlando’s other gay bars, and because the rent needs to get paid, LGBT nightlife staffers have had to work through their pain in public — not to mention the emotional labor involved in being the face of a national tragedy. Here’s how they’re coping: in stolen, private moments among the queer families that love them.
Read more at BuzzFeed
When Trans Selfies In Bathrooms Go Viral
To protest anti-trans bathroom bills, some attractive, cis-passing trans people have taken selfies to show the absurdity of having to use a restroom that doesn’t match their gender identity. But do cis allies who share these images express allegiance to established gender roles as a condition of their support?
Read more at BuzzFeed
Answering the Call
You may not realize it, but the person on the other side of your customer service phone call might be transgender. On calls, Filipino workers can safely adopt women’s voices, names, and clothing, all while earning a decent wage. But their success at work doesn’t protect them from the discrimination they face outside of it.
Read more at BuzzFeed
When Home Is Between Different Countries And Genders
Many immigrants have written about how we always keep a part of ourselves even when we’re somewhere else, but as a trans woman, it’s hard to talk openly about an experience I often have, of being reminded of my former life as a boy and young man.
Read more at BuzzFeed
25 Years Of Transphobia In Comedy
Men don’t vomit at the sight of trans women in comedies anymore, but recent releases like Deadpool and Zoolander 2 demonstrate how trans and gender-nonconforming people are still reduced to empty punchlines.