About a year into transition, my grandmother died. She never knew me but I showed up to her funeral in girl mode. It was the first time any of my family had seen me that way.

After that funeral, I had a long chat with one of my aunts about me and my transition. While the rest of my family was busy trying to forget about it, she was actually interested. We talked for over three hours. Towards the end she asked if I'd ever considered suicide. She didn't know shit about trans people but she'd heard statistics and after 30+ years working as a nurse in Minneapolis, she's trained to watch for that sort of thing.

I told her that no, it had never come to that for me. I've had my battles with the darkness but it never came to that.

On Trans Day of Remembrance, we grieve those that lost their battle with the darkness. Maybe it was to poverty or disease or evil, violent men. Or maybe they just lost the will to keep living in a world that hates them. Whatever the means, the fact that they succumbed to the darkness isn't a personal failure. Most of us have battle the darkness in one form or another. Not all of us survive.

If you're a cis person and you want to do something for them today, don't treat it like it's some sort of holiday or chance for you to prove your allyness by making a big deal out of it. Just show them some extra kindness. Buy them flowers or a coffee "just because". Give them a hug. And remember that they, too, are battling the darkness and they may not even be winning today.

And remember, whether you're cis or trans, that the battle is worth fighting and the darkness doesn't have to win. 💜

PSA for any trans+ person looking to start, or currently doing, any kind of voice training

Seattle Voice Lab has broken their silence over a former employee of theirs (Jimmy Chen), who set up his own voice coaching service called Trans Voice Lab.

We need to address Trans Voice Lab.

We highly recommend watching / listening to the whole video, but here are some key points within their video:

• Jimmy's employment was terminated for "manipulative teaching practices and dishonesty towards" their students.
• He downloaded their bespoke training materials (SVL's intellectual property) and client lists (!!!), then used these to set up his own voice coaching service and write a book.
• SVL didn't want to have to make the video, but has felt obliged to do so.
• SVL is pursuing "legal counsel" over Jimmy's actions.

tl;dr

• Avoid any videos or guides from Jimmy Chen.
• Avoid using Trans Voice Lab at all costs.

Boosts and crossposts very welcome, as we need to make more folks aware of this  

#trans #transgender #enby #NonBinary #voice #VoiceTraining #VoiceTherapy #VoiceCoaching #VoiceFeminization #VoiceFeminisation #VoiceMasculinization #VoiceMasculinisation #SeattleVoiceLab #TransVoiceLab #JimmyChen #PSA #queer #LGBTQ+ #LGBTQIA+ #BoostsWelcome

If you or your children are hungry and need food, reach out to your local area:
- Muslim mosque
- Jewish synagogue
- Buddhist temple
- Morman temple
- Sikh gurdwara

Mainline Christian churches usually have specific bylaws preventing them from helping you unless you are a member or can specifically name somebody who is.

Pass it on.

We treat our default settings as sacred.

HRT for trans people is a good example, but crucially, it shows an issue that everyone potentially faces.

A cis woman should have as much control over her hormones as a trans woman. Maybe she has painful periods. Maybe she doesn't want to be pregnant. Maybe she wants bigger boobs. Whatever.

"this may alter your body". Get fucked.

"what if you change your mind later". Get fucked.

"this may make you less fertile". Get fucked.

Many cis women I know heard, when they complained about pain or other health issues related to their sex and their reproductive organs, that they could simply get pregnant. Usually a male doctor told them that.

If getting pregnant will lessen a symptom, that means it's probably a question of hormone levels. It's insane that we treat "produce an entire human being inside you from scratch" as a solution to women's inconvenience or pain or discomfort.

Just take Progesterone. Or whatever else your body needs.

Yes, I said "needs".

Hormones are so cheap to produce they're basically free. There is no reason to not tweak our sex hormone levels. The range in which a body operates healthily is HUGE. Sex hormones raise like a hundredfold during a pregnancy. The AFAB body can handle taking hormones. It doesn't need or have to be an emergency. You don't need to be menopausal.

What the fuck am I talking about. Taking E to lessen the symptoms of menopause IS something doctors look at with suspicion.

We treat our bodies as sacred in the worst possible way.

Bodily autonomy means FULL bodily autonomy. Our hormones should be ours to decide.

We shouldn't sometimes allow for hormonal injection or pills when we actually need to, with furtive embarrassment. That is not bodily autonomy. That is medical oppression.

Trans people are so hated by the right because we lay bare the indisputable fact that the human body is mutable. It's flexible. It can be a little DIY project. It has optional software.

It goes for all bodily modifications by the way. Tattoos? Piercing? A boob job? Liposuction? Hair removal? Plastic surgery?

Cis people, especially cis women, deserve the freedom that we as trans women demand for ourselves. It's not up for debate. But it's the reason trans people are a threat.

We show what is possible. And that is not a Good Thing under patriarchy. A woman's role is to be shamed for having a body while denying her opportunities to modify it. Then blaming her for being the way she is, and selling her half measures to make herself acceptable. It's set up this way very deliberately.

Tell me I'm wrong, lol.

The shit we grew up with.

But we turned out alright.

Right?

.... Right?....

Hey everyone, you can already see me in my intro post (rtx-on model) and videos/streams (mostly rtx-off model), so I figured I'd do something a little different  

I want to cover two things: why it matters, and what non-trans people can do to help  

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 Queer folks are, for the most part, not raised within the community. We're most often born in non-queer families and often go through a large chunk of our lives not even knowing queer folks exist, that anything outside of the cis-het structure even exists.

Racial representation gives us role-models, shows us that it's ok to be, in my case, mixed-race, that our struggles are seen. Queer representation, on the other hand, shows us that queer folks exist, that that is something even *possible* to be. I went 3 decades without realising that the feelings I was feeling were gender dysphoria, without realising there was something I could do about it, without realising that doing those things about it would finally make me feel like I was me, not just a husk of a meat-mech I was piloting around waiting for some unknown thing to happen  

However, trans visibility can be deadly to trans folks  Being visible in our current society isn't just a physical danger to us, it can often be a danger to our social lives and financial stability. Trans people are homeless at a staggering rate, both due to families often shunning them as well as jobs firing and not hiring them.

In fact, even here on fedi, where some of the space is decently protective of trans people (though major servers tend not to be), every few months, there is a wave of posts talking about how "2D 'anime' (read: anything including picrews) profile pics (pfps) mean bigots and nazis", which, if you've read the last 3 paragraphs, you can see why a first-name-last-name-real-face account might be existentially dangerous to trans folks.

Being able to be out, to even show our faces, on trans day of visibility is a risk to every person who does it. It's a risk taken with the hope that it will help make the world survivable for all other trans folks, both currently existing and every one who will exist in the future  

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Now, what can you do about it if you're non-trans? Stop falling for transphobic talking points. Stop letting a person use another marginalisation as justification for being transphobic. Stop supporting organisations that support (or Lyssa fuckin' forbid, are *run by*) people who espouse transphobic rhetoric.

But more than that, if you have some money to spare, help trans people not starve. I'm not saying "send one $500 a month" (I will not object if you do, as a note), I'm saying maybe find a few trans people that need it and contribute $10 or $20, something within your means. Super bonus points for setting aside a little every month.

I know ko-fi and patreon allow for it in an automated way to make it easier, too, though on ko-fi, you usually have to click from single-time to monthly  

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If you've read this far, thank you. I hope this has been interesting to read, and hopefully, given you tangible ways to help  

#Queer #Trans #SocialJustice #TransDayOfVisibility