Trans Writes Contributors

On #TransDayOfVisibility we wanted to do our extra best to give the spotlight to the least visible members of the transgender and gender diverse communities around the world. Thank you to Michael for reaching out and writing this piece on culture specific identities they titled "What an Indigenous person would like the queer community to know":

Rachel Pollack, widely known for her Tarot reading and comic books, passed away on April 7th 2023. We wanted to honour her life and commissioned this piece from a friend of hers in her memory. Roz Kaveney writes;

It’s not often that I experience a piece of art that feels as tailored to my own lived experiences as Goodbye Volcano High, a game about dinosaur teens trying to chase their dreams and been seen for who they are, as they endure the slow burn trauma of living through the possible incoming extinction of their species. 

Trans Action Warwick regard this protest as a success. They say they achieved their aim of disrupting the event, using it to make a statement that we need to oppose transphobia and those who weaponise it against us. They believe we can’t gain liberation by attending and asking "difficult questions" alone and that doing so risks legitimising the answers and normalising the negative way transphobes talk about trans people.

"At its core, Billie Bust Up seems to be a fairly simple 3D mascot platformer. Levels involve jumping across platforms, collecting collectables, and navigating throughout environments. It is however when you reach one of the game’s boss fights that the game’s strengths really start to shine through." Laura Kate Dale writes;

A trans non-binary person is bringing legal proceedings against the British government, urging it to legally recognise their gender as non-binary. Ryan Castellucci, a US citizen who moved to the UK for work in 2019, is legally recognised as non-binary in their home state of California, including on their passport and birth certificate.

On Monday 12 June, MPs met in Westminster Hall for a three hour debate on the definition of sex in the Equality Act 2010. A contentious debate that had been bubbling up for several months. Moss writes;

The Gender Census 2022 is out and Tom Pashby has a little poke around inside of it. Small content warning for transphobic slurs, which will be uncensored in this article.

I do not care to weigh in on the discourse surrounding single-sex schools in general, but I am telling you that in my experience at an all-girlls school I was not protected from sexism, gender conformity, or transness (even before this became the boogeyman in the UK). Teaching LGBTQIA+ topics is an absolute must in helping equip students to understand and protect themselves from the experiences such as mine.

Self ID in Finland is on the horizon so we asked a Finnish trans writer to tell us about it and the wider context it exists in. Vilja Heikkilä writes;