Anti-trans sex essentialist activists love to pretend that "transgender" is a verb for the same reason anti-gay activists like to pretend "gay" is also a verb. If being gay or trans is a mere matter of behavior rather than selfhood, then people can just stop the behavior that makes them gay or trans. This is the basic idea behind anti-gay and anti-trans conversion therapy. Nevermind that this belief about gay and trans people is… Read more.

Today the Merriam-Webster announced the addition of the singular non-binary pronoun, they. The nonbinary pronoun 'they' has been added to the dictionary. https://t.co/tadl1VdfB0 — Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) September 17, 2019 In an interview with the TransAdvocate, Merriam-Webster representative Emily A. Brewster said the following: Evidence for they as it is used to refer to one person whose gender identity is nonbinary is increasingly common in published, edited text, as well as all over social media and in daily personal interactions between… Read more.

I suppose the headline of this article should actually read, "Will LOGO ban RuPauls drag race?" Then, all of those who truly understand the dynamics of the situation at hand could answer, "Probably not. But they most certainly should."  For some of us, the question is, "Why is it unlikely that LOGO will separate from him?" Let's face it, money and power breeds privilege. When segments within minority groups begin to gain privilege, the struggles of others might not seem very important. Those (now) privileged minorities,… Read more.

Discourse surrounding the term tranny has become more than a little heated. In fact, a RuPaul Drag Race runner-up enacted the mock execution of a trans woman named Parker Molloy for the apparent crime of asking that folks not be so casual with the language people use while killing trans people. Andrea James thought the mock execution was "hilarious" and a HuffPo Gay editor promoted the video.  There's a number of posts out there critiquing the mock execution of Parker Molloy. This article will not substantively focus on these… Read more.

The following is a peer-reviewed paper originally published in Present Tense: A Journal of Rhetoric in Society. The article was co-authored by the TransAdvocate Editor, Cristan Williams and Dr. Rawson of the College of the Holy Cross. K.J. Rawson, Cristan Williams, 2014 The current ubiquity of the word transgender might imply that it is an uncomplicated word.1 It circulates widely—in the media, in academia, and in the titles of organizations, archives, and resource centers—to the extent… Read more.

This is the one in a series of blog posts in which I discuss some of the concepts and terminology that I forward in my writings, including my new book Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive. So in Excluded, I introduce the term “gender artifactualism” to describe, “the tendency to conceptualize and depict gender as being primarily or entirely a cultural artifact.” Gender artifactualist viewpoints are pervasive within feminist and queer activism, and within the academic fields of Women’s/Gender Studies, Queer Theory,… Read more.

I just read a sad little rant by a TS Separatist: “I see the T in lgbt as being a dumping zone, a miscelaneous, really in my view, the T is a junk drawer, an oubliette if you will. The T can stand for MEN who wear women’s clothes for reasons of sexual arousal, it can stand for gay MEN who wear women’s clothes for reasons of entertainment, it can stand for Men who are still sorting out why and… Read more.

It’s amazing what’s expected of us as trans people. We’re supposed to watch our trans sisters succumb to unspeakable brutality on a constant basis. We’re supposed to ignore the fact that we can be legally fired in thirty-eight states simply because we’re trans. We’re supposed to “understand” when we are denied admittance to public places or refused public restroom access based on our appearance or our paperwork. And we’re supposed to “get over it” when someone uses offensive language to… Read more.

Today I found that I was the subject of another Dana Lane Taylor commentary. Dana is an opinion leader in the TS Separatist group and in this post she claims that I am trying to force her and those like her to give up identifying a transsexual women: Then there are the power struggles which seem to have ramped up a lot lately. Cristan Williams, Supreme Queen of Transgender Historical Records and better than anyone else on the interwebz, is… Read more.