The 1960s were monumental for civil rights, but one side of it isn’t really discussed in our history books: the fight for gay rights. Currently, there is legislation across the country trying to restrict the discussion of gender and sexuality in classrooms. This also limits being able to teach youth about an important facet of history, the history of the LGBTQ+ community. A monumental moment in the fight for gay rights took place at the Stonewall riots. Now, what were the Stonewall Riots?
Throughout the 20th century, the civil rights movement in the USA was steadily building. Before the Stonewall Riots, there was another riot in 1966. It took place in San Francisco at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria and in an area that had been described by the news as “a hotbed for homosexuals and transvestites and a marketplace of vice, degradation and human misery.” In a 2005 documentary called Screaming Queens, trans and queer people were able to share their experiences with Compton’s. One described it as a home, where the queer people “took care of me like big sisters. They were just so sweet to me and to each other.” It was also shared that police violence was ever present; Collete LeGrande testified that she witnessed “a policeman drag a trans woman and beat her with a club” at Compton’s. The women in the film said that the cafeteria was a safe haven for queer and trans folk, to check in with each other. In 1966, while the exact date is unknown, a police officer put his hand on a woman and the fighting broke out. It ended that night with many people heading to jail, but not without doing some damage themselves – “a destroyed police car, a newsstand set on fire.” The queer people of Compton’s were fed up with the treatment they had been enduring, as the film revealed, they were being arrested for “for all kinds of “crimes”, including “female impersonation” and “obstructing the sidewalk.”. Currently, the area where this took place is trying to create a ‘trans district,’ you can read more here.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Quite the provocative title! I will say, if you liked the Rocky Horror Picture Show, you’ll love this musical. It’s in the same genre of rock opera and is written by a queer person. Let me give you a little history on it! It was created by John Cameron Mitchell and was released off-Broadway in 1998, then adapted to film in 2001. It hit Broadway in 2014 and went on national tour in 2016. Now, it’s being played in various theaters all around the world.
What I love about Hedwig and the Angry Inch is the music. Right now, it’s all that I’ve been blasting through my ears. It scratches a specific itch in my ears that just energizes me and fills me with a weird and powerful vigor. When listening to it, I’m just ready to take on the world. As a trans person, I can relate to a lot of the lyrics and the feelings around gender. While I can’t relate quite to Hedwig’s journey, there are many familiar aspects of queer love and gender questions that feel very universal. My favorite song, Origin of Love, takes Plato’s Symposiumand adds a punk rock spin to it… while keeping it beautiful and elegant. The way this song conceptualizes queer love into words and a gorgeous harmony is just breathtaking. It has its moments of calm that rise with energy and crash into a fiery flame. I really recommend giving it a listen, the whole playlist is great! My second favorite song is for sure Tear Me Down, which feels like a challenge for the world to try and take my identity away from me.
By Travis Gray Florida passed the “Don’t Say Gay Bill” on March 28, 2022, limiting the discussion of gender and sexuality in K-3rd grade. This is troubling for a multitude of reasons. Will children be able to talk about their two mommies or daddies? It has also drawn back the proverbial curtain, exposing many companies who have put support towards the bill. In the wake of the bill, it was revealed that Disney was financially backing politicians who were pushing the bill forward. This has sparked controversy and anger from various LGBTQ+ people, and it doesn’t help that Disney has a rough track record with LGBTQ+ representation in their content. Since then, waves of animators, writers, and development staff have started to come forward with their experiences with the diversity censorship they have dealt with working with Disney.
[Note: Potential spoilers for various content and shows, including Owl House, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Eternals etc.]
When I was first introduced to Dungeons and Dragons, I thought it was a game that wasn’t for me. It grew in the ‘80s, played by young white cisgender boys, and acquired a reputation for violence, gore, and battle tactics. It felt inaccessible… I liked the idea of fantasy and dragons, it was a cool thing I knew about, but I just didn’t know how to approach it… until I fell into the world of podcasts and actual play. Actual play is media that uses tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons to tell a story. My introduction to actual play was through the McElroy family and their podcast, The Adventure Zone: Balance, where three comedian brothers and their radio-host father played Dungeons and Dragons. Through this, I was able to see the power of Dungeons and Dragons as a tool for storytelling and as a device for exploring one’s identity.
Across the USA, anti-transgender legislation is raging forward. In Texas and Idaho, they are moving towards banning transgender healthcare for people under 18. When I see people debating my right to live, I see a consistent argument from the other side: “What about when these kids change their minds?” “What if they regret it in the future?” “What about the high rates of detransition?” etc. I’m here to talk about people who do decide to detransition – why, who, when, and the big one, the rates. I’m not here to talk about what makes a person transgender, or whether kids should or shouldn’t transition. I am here to share the research I have done, since according to certain sides, science reigns over feelings when it comes to gender.
The first study I explored was from the European Professional Association for Transgender Health (EPATH) where they reported on detransition rates; they studied records from Charing Cross Gender Identity Clinic in the United Kingdom. They found that from August 2016 to August 2017 “of the 3398 patients who had appointments during this period, 16 (0.47%) expressed transition-related regret or detransitioned” (Davies, et al. 139). When these patients discussed their reasons for regret, they had a multitude of answers; “one patient expressed regret but was not considering detransitioning, two had expressed regret and were considering detransitioning, three had detransitioned, and ten had detransitioned temporarily. Only three patients made a long-term detransition.” (Davies, et al. 139). From this instance we can see that out of 3398 people, only 0.089% of patients officially detransitioned. When discussing kiddos, according to Gender GP, a study from the Netherlands found that “only 1.9% of young people on puberty blockers did not want to continue with the medical transition.” From two studies, we can see that it was a small amount of folks who followed through with some sort of detransition.
Now why do people detransition? It can be for a variety of reasons. Transgender individuals face various obstacles socially, economically, legally, and medically. According to this study by Fenway Health, “The most common reason cited for detransition was pressure from a parent (35.5%), pressure from their community or societal stigma (32.5%), or trouble finding a job (26.8%). Other reasons included pressure from medical health professionals (5.6%) or religious leaders (5.3%).” This is followed up from a survey of 28,000 transgender people from the USA where it provided statistics that “Nearly one-third (31%) of respondents who visited a store, restaurant, hotel, or theater where the staff knew or thought they were transgender were mistreated because of their gender identity or expression,” (215), and that “Nearly half (48%) of respondents reported that they were denied equal treatment or service, verbally harassed, and/or physically attacked because of being transgender in the past year” (199). There’s always a burning fear of physical or verbal assault, an itch so bad that it makes sense to hide from it. Furthermore, many transgender people lose the support of family members, friends, and coworkers when they come out as transgender- it can be isolating and scary. If the option is to revert their prior identity so they can return to love and support, no wonder people do it. During the pandemic we found how hard it was to be alone with no one to talk to. Imagine if that was because someone despised you for your identity, even though it was someone who was supposed to love you for who you are.
In the EPATH article, “detransition was most often prompted by social difficulties rather than changes in gender identity or physical complications and was most often temporary” (Davies, et al. 139). Temporary? It can be found that when a person starts to get more support and footing for their identity, they may end their detransition and ‘retransition.’ “In the US, a survey of nearly 28,000 people found that only eight percent of respondents reported some kind of detransition. Of these, sixty-two percent only did so temporarily” as reported from this Gender GP article about Detransition Facts and Statistics. While everyone’s transition, detransitions, and possible retransitions are different per person- support is an immense factor. From the study it can be seen that a high portion of folks return to their transgender identity when they feel safe and loved, maybe we can cut the middle man out and start with caring for our fellow people and giving them love, instead of taking their rights away.
This is not a ‘trans people vs detransitioners’ kind of thing. It’s unfortunate that this care option didn’t work out for those people or that they had obstacles in their way. I feel for them, I really do, and I think we should listen to the stories of people who detransition. Inversely, their stories should not overshadow other experiences of transgender people and the good that can come from transitioning. Through this post I have shared that many factors go into why people detransition. Lack of support is the highest factor to why people detransition, so I fully believe that through support and love, people can find and accept their identities- whether cisgender or transgender. Transition is scary, but ostracizing people is not going to help them with their choices. In the meantime, it’s going to hurt a lot of kids, teens, and adults who are already struggling with the lack of support that the community faces. I know I would not be here today if I hadn’t been able to transition when I was 16 and if I had seen my state working against me to strip my identity from me, it would have broken me. Listen to transgender people, listen to detransitioners, listen to transgender kids, because if this bill goes through… transgender medical care rates for youths will go down, but suicide rates will go up.
“Multiple trans individuals testified on the record to everyone in that committee that day, that had they not access to the healthcare that they had, that they would not have been there to testify, that they would have killed themselves,” House Representative Ned Burns (D-Bellevue) said during the conference discussing the bill.
The internet is a vast and wild world, and it was the first place I learned the term ‘transgender.’ Throughout my teenage years, I started to see more and more people that I related to and made me able to say, “Oh hey, I feel like that, too!” Here are a few influential trans people who helped me find my identity, hear different perspectives, and have people that I can see myself in in the world.
Miles McKenna (he/they) was the first (as of when I found him) lesbian YouTuber I found. 6 years ago, I had an inkling of what transgender meant, but no living, breathing examples. The L and the G of LGBT were pretty self-explanatory to me, and just like Miles, I also identified as a lesbian. When I found his YouTube channel, he was an out and proud lesbian, and I got hooked on his videos. They were high energy, ridiculous, and perfect for a middle schooler. I related a lot to him- being very gender nonconforming or ‘tomboyish,’ not caring about body hair, and wanting to wear men’s clothing because “Hey it’s comfortable and has pockets.” On January 30th, 2017, he posted a video titled “SO I’M TRANS*” where he came out as trans, shared his new name and pronouns, and started the journey of uncertainty. In my own journey, I had been starting to get a feel for what transgender meant and what it was, but I just wasn’t confident in what I knew or even what I felt. His video thrust it into my face and as he kept posting with this new confidence, energy, and happiness, I knew it was something I wanted, too. I was able to see someone who was already a role model to me go through the transition process and it helped me immensely. His “I AM MILES” video was athe biggest help, since it outlined his transition process and made them feel feasible! Honestly, I used that video and others of his after I came out to my parents to show them that, “Hey, this person did it and here is his journey.” We also learned that we had a family friend who was also transgender; the world is much smaller than you may think. Miles McKenna currently has a book calledOut!: How to Be Your Authentic Self highlighting his transition, which is described as an “ultimate coming-out survival guide.”
This guide is subject to the whims of time and laws, I suggest double checking the dates of the resources to see if it is up to date if you are reading this post further in the future from the date it was published. Furthermore, I will specifically be highlighting how to change your name and gender marker in Idaho. I am familiar with this process because I took these steps to change my own information. Unfortunately, name and gender marker changing laws for transgender people vary by state. I suggest using this resource as a jumping off point: https://transequality.org/documents. You can look up your state and how to change nearly every piece of legal documentation in each. Warning for people who want to change their gender marker; in some states you flat-out cannot change your gender marker, or the guidelines for doing so are incredibly rigid—needing various steps of medical transition to “prove identity” as one example—and sometimes the laws are incredibly vague and unhelpful, as well. I wish you the best and hope that can change!
These following sections are the steps I took and the order I did them in proved to be really efficient. Just note that this is a long process that will take at least a month to obtain the court order for your name change. There will be an in-between time where some of your information has switched, but you’re still waiting for others. It’s frustrating, but you can do it! I will be addressing how to obtain a court ordered name change document, and how to change your name and gender marker on your birth certificate and social security records. Once you have all those things, you’ll be able to use them to update your information at the DMV, and for your passport, banks, schools, and everything else in between. It’s pretty straight forward once you have everything, just tedious!
The University of Idaho is having a Name Change Clinic for Spring 2022! If you’re interested in this process, the College of Law will be able to help you out. Here is a flyer. They have upcoming dates for February 28, March 9 and 28, and April 13 and 25 from noon to 3:00pm. You can also contact Cindy Maylott at 208-885-6541 to schedule an appointment. Happy name changing!
A front view shot of Travis Gray’s piece “Two Voices of a Blossoming Creator”
This is a final project I did for Art 121, Integrated Design Process, during my first semester of college. At this point I had really grown into the class, getting into the groove of a college art class and exploring the history of my own identity. The project itself was to use a ‘found object’ that celebrated a victory in your life. One of the most monumental events in my life was starting testosterone! I had already been collecting all my vials with the intention of creating an art piece, so I saw this as the perfect opportunity. This was really an eye-opening experience into myself and I hope that someone can find themselves in this article. It really would have spoken to me pre-transition. Below is my artist statement:
Transitioning isn’t a linear process, it’s a bumpy road with highs and lows. My piece highlights many of these occasions. Starting testosterone was monumental for me so I used the vials as the ‘seed’ of the flower to honor that. From the vials, the flowers sprout up, just like I have once I began my transition. Each flower has a different significance. I did 11 flowers and vials because the 11th month is when I started testosterone.
The chests on the Michelangelo pieces are highlighted with the painted-on scars- the chests being shown is important to me. I did this because of my own experience with my top surgery, my scars are a work of art that I’m proud of.
For many, October marks the beginning of chilly weather and the reemergence of chunky sweaters and pumpkin spice lattes. Halloween is just around the corner and the shifting of leaves from green to shades of gold and red make for stunning photo opportunities. But the beginning of October marks something else as well: LGBTQ+ History Month. This month serves as an opportunity for members of the community to remember the obstacles that those before us overcame so that we can have the freedoms we have today.
Despite all the accomplishments of the LGBTQ+ community, biases, stereotypes, and misunderstandings still linger. But you may be surprised to learn that stereotypes exist within the community as well. There are a few identities within the community that face bias from other members of their community, like people on the ace spectrum. But today, I want to talk about the backlash that bisexual people encounter from within this community, especially bi women.
On my thirteenth birthday, one gift from a relative consisted of a glittery pink tote full of eyeshadow, lipstick, and anything else a princess-in-training could ask for. But I had never shown an interest in makeup, and I didn’t intend to learn anything past applying simple eyeliner. Whenever I didn’t feel the need to put effort into applying a face full of makeup every day I was often met with greetings along the lines of “You look tired” or “Did you not sleep well?”
Women are often looked down on or criticized for not conforming to the standard of what a “put together” woman should look like. Often-time, this criticism comes in the form of concern from a friend or family member who has nothing but the best intentions. The idea of constantly looking presentable has even invaded professional spaces where young women seek the advice of strangers on internet forums asking if not wearing makeup to an interview will cost them a potential job. One Reddit user asked, “Should I risk no makeup?”, as if it was the sole factor deciding her employment. Unfortunately, this worry is not completely unfounded. A study discussed in a 2011 New York Times article found that women who wore makeup were seen as “more competent” than their barefaced counterparts.
uiwomenscenter.wordpress.com 