Being the Doctor and Being Trans

I love Doctor Who. A while ago, a friend wrote a blog post about Doctor Who that just provided even more reasons to love the show, “The queer connection: Trans identity and the Doctor.” Hir post focuses on the similarities between the Doctor and trans people. I think it’s a fascinating idea.

My Best Friend’s Wedding

At the wedding

My best friend got married today! I am so thrilled for her and her new husband. It was a beautiful ceremony, and I’m glad that I’m on T because otherwise there’s a decent chance that I would have bawled through the whole thing. I had the whole wobbly-lipped, about-to-sob thing going on as it was, but there were no actual tears (which are a lot harder to hide). It was wonderful; the reception was fantastic; and the couple was clearly very much in love. Most definitely a day to remember. 

Gender and the New Job

Navigating new situations is nearly always a tricky thing, gender-wise. The past two weeks at the new job have been a bit mixed. Overall, it’s going well (more occasionally awkward than actually bad). I’m out, I think, although not in so many words — I haven’t directly said that I’m trans (no one’s asked), but I have stated that I prefer masculine pronouns in front of my entire training class. 

Missing My Uniform

From the time I entered kindergarten until I graduated from high school, I wore a uniform. I wasn’t a big fan of how it looked, but it made dressing in the morning very easy.

Once I went off to college, I had to pick out an outfit everyday, and it was exhausting. I didn’t do much in the way of fashion, but I still didn’t want to look as though I never changed my clothes. I ended up creating a uniform of sorts — generally jeans, black Doc Martens, and a solid colored v-neck of sorts. I had probably a dozen different v-necks in a rainbow of colors. It evolved a bit over the years — now I wear polos instead of v-necks — but it has remained surprisingly constant (or perhaps not surprisingly, given how inept I am with fashion and how little I have in the way of personal style).

Not Your Usual Trans Childhood Narrative

EXPLORING TRANS – WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 2010, 5:40 PM

When I was little, my grandmother made me a pink princess costume for Halloween: a little petal pink shift, a darker pink cape that tied with a white grosgrain ribbon and was trimmed with sequins, and a pale pink satin tiara, also trimmed with sequins. I loved it. After Halloween, that costume ended up in my dress up box (a purple box with white hearts), and I played with it all the time.

The Hardest Battle Which Any Human Being Can Fight

“To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

– e.e. cummings

I don’t know if I’d agree that the very hardest fight that exists is to be “nobody-but-yourself” — it seems that that may diminish the significance of war and corruption in the world — but it often seems that my personal most difficult struggle is to be true to myself. The pressure seems especially intense right now to live someone else’s gender, to turn my back on my more radical politics, to play it safe.

Bryn Mawr is a women’s college. What does that mean to you?

Written September 16, 2009

Who belongs at a women’s college? Who belongs at Bryn Mawr College, specifically? This is not merely an abstract or theoretical argument. This affects actual people and whether they feel welcome at their own college, on their own campus.

To answer that, I think it is important to look at what the point of a women’s college is. Why does Bryn Mawr exist in the first place? Why is it a good thing that there be a college exclusively for women?

Starting T: What I’m Looking Forward To

A few months ago, I was talking to a friend about my plans for starting T. He asked me what I was most looking forward to — after a bit, I said not sounding like a twelve-year-old and not being read as a girl. While that’s true, it’s not the first thing that came to mind.

I Feel Like I’m Losing Myself

EXPLORING TRANS – SATURDAY, JULY 10, 2010, 8:11 PM

I feel like I’m being pulled in so many different directions. I don’t know how — I’ve never know how — to deal with multiple identities in a way that didn’t cause one of them to be neglected and ignored. I’m a Korean adoptee, but I’m also queer and trans, and I haven’t yet been able to figure out a way to unite those identities, instead of simply pushing one to the foreground and the other to the back.

Re: Please Don’t Call My Drink “Girly”

It’s amazing how much can change in little more than one year. When I first wrote “Please Don’t Call My Drink ‘Girly,’” thirteen or fourteen months ago, I was in a very different mental place in terms of security in my own gender presentation and my preferences in alcoholic drinks. I am now definitely more comfortable with my drink preferences and more sure in the knowledge that what I drink doesn’t change who I am.