#there are trans woman drag queens right | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

layla-d · 17 days

Text

51 notes · View notes

thecovenhouseco · 10 months

Text

If conservatives ever complain about Drag or Trans people, ask how many times they laughed at Big Mamma’s House, Mrs Doubtfire, Madea or White Chicks. Orrrrr Ask them why they supported Trump even after this

Or maybe ask them why they supported The Man who said “Transgenderism” needs to be eradicated even after this

Or maybe ask them about this

They’re a bunch of lying hypocrites who simply want control. Fuck the GOP.

15 notes · View notes

spoekelse · 3 months

Text

Kind of weird that we act like only trans women face transmisogyny when cis black women and gay men also VERY clearly are affected by it.

Almost like “transmisogyny” is just a word that describes a wide range of phenomena (that primarily effect trans women ofc) but isn’t like, RPG class-locked.

#transmisogyny #whispers of spoekelse #Serena Williams. Michelle Obama. Britney Griner #obviously what they’re experiencing is misogynoir.#but they’re all also very clearly the targets of transphobia. people claiming they’re men #people claiming they’re secretly trans women #gay men are also clearly targets of transmisogyny #of course it’s homophobia at the same time but it’s definitely also transmisogyny #I mean just LOOK at the moral panic around drag queens!#most of them aren’t trans but transmisogyny is clearly the reason they’re vilified by the right #and there are of course AMAB people who aren’t exactly cis but who aren’t really trans either who face hate #also perisexism and transmisogyny overlap significantly #intersex people can face discrimination from people for their sex characteristics resembling a trans woman’s #and hatred for the bodies of perisex trans people in often based in hatred of intersex people

5 notes · View notes

coochiequeens · 1 year

Text

Would Insider consider interviewing this guys victims about their fight for justice?

An incarcerated drag queen jailed for his role in a child sex trafficking operation was given a platform to garner sympathy for his difficulties in male prison as a “trans woman of color.”

On March 31, Insider published an article titled “I’m a Trans Woman of Color in an All-Male Prison. I had to fight for my right to gender-affirming care behind bars.” The byline was under the name Christina Alicia, but the author is better known as Christopher Thomas Lynch or Christina Alicia Lynch.

Last October, Reduxx reported that Lynch had been using social media to crowdfund for “gender affirming” treatments, advocate for trans causes, and write for “harm reduction” magazines. This is despite the fact Lynch is currently in prison serving a sentence stemming from a 2012 arrest for forcing a teenage boy into prostitution.

The male youth, who identified as a transgender “girl,” was plied with cocaine and used to make child sexual abuse materials in addition to being forced to have sex with men up to four times per day for money.

But the teenager was not the only victim.

Lynch and his boyfriend, Steven Lemery, were found to have run an exploitation ring in which they used social media to lure gay and transgender teenage boys for the purposes of forcing them into the sex trade. Lemery, who was a drag queen and go-go dancer at a gay club, was in a polyamorous relationship with Lynch, as well as a woman and her boyfriend. There were multiple small children residing in the home where the abuses took place.

The trafficked teenagers were reportedly locked in the bedroom closet when not being abused or prostituted, and the case involved at least four victims from the states of Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina. Deputies reported that the men had been trafficking teens for “two or three years” prior to being discovered.

“Most of the victims were runaways or easy targets,” explained Chief Deputy Sheriff Stan Copeland of the Douglas County Sheriff’s office at the time. “They would put the kids in a dependent situation. If they wanted to leave, they’d have to perform sexual favors.”

At the time of his arrest, Lynch worked as a drag queen under the moniker Pasha Nicole.

During his trial, Lynch called the repeated sex abuse and trafficking of the children “a stupid mistake,” despite the fact he had initially tried to pin the entirety of the blame on Lemery.

Prior to prosecutors unfurling the extent of the horrific abuses, Lynch had given interviews with local media in which he feigned ignorance to what had happened, portrayed himself as an asset to police, and claimed he had no role in the victimization of the children. But during his trial, it was revealed that Lynch had transported the youth to their adult clients and taken the money from them following their “sessions,” netting a massive income from their sexual exploitation.

“Mr. Lynch had found his meal ticket. Anytime the victim walked out of the household [of a client], [Lynch] was sitting with [his] hand out, took the money and fed them cocaine,” the state prosecutor said of his crime.

Lynch was first taken into custody on March 4, 2011 for a number of sexual offenses.

Among the charges was an indictment for knowingly harboring a child for the “purposes of sexual servitude.” He was ultimately convicted on two counts of sexual exploitation of a child, pandering by compulsion, possession of drug-related items, and one count of pimping a minor – which was reduced from human trafficking during a plea deal. He was released on parole in 2018, but quickly rearrested after violating his conditions.

In his Insider op-ed, Lynch glossed over the substance of his crimes, stating simply: “I found myself facing felony charges and was sentenced to 14 years in prison for conduct that occurred when I was 19. In 2012, I entered the Georgia prison system as a 21-year-old trans woman of color.”

The remainder of the piece is used by Lynch to discuss his legal fight for hormones and “gender affirming” treatment by the Georgia Department of Corrections, as well as his educational progress.

“I’ve been blessed to be able to get an education with the assistance of friends and sponsors. While in prison, I’ve earned a diploma in paralegal studies, a certificate in civil litigation, and completed my bachelor’s in theology,” Lynch writes. “I’m wrapping up my master’s in theological and historical studies at Amherst Theological Seminary, with conditional acceptance to their doctoral program.”

Calling Georgia’s trans inmate policies “tyranny,” Lynch also claims he has been the victim of mistreatment while in a men’s prison, stating: “As a trans woman, I’ve faced numerous dangers: harassment, violence, discrimination, and lack of access to medical care. I’ve also been physically and sexually assaulted on several occasions. As happens with many victims, I was accused of lying about it.”

When Reduxx first reported on Lynch, it was revealed that he had been operating a Twitter account with over 21,000 followers from behind bars.

Lynch had used his Twitter to make misogynistic and lesbophobic comments towards feminist users, including attacking an account dedicated to lesbian survivors of sexual assault. He also rallied trans activists to donate to his fundraisers in an effort to secure “gender affirming care.”

On TikTok, using the name @ImprisonedPrincess, Lynch was seen dancing in his cell to popular songs and making sexually suggestive videos.

Following Reduxx‘s initial report, Lynch deleted his Twitter and TikTok accounts.

The Insider piece was not the first time Lynch had found a sympathetic platform.

Lynch had published multiple articles related to his legal cases and his experience in prison in Filter magazine under the pen name once associated with his Twitter. In a piece titled “As Trans Women Incarcerated in Georgia, Our Medical Needs Are Brutally Ignored,” he outlines his case and other similar legal fights by incarcerated males for hormones or transfers to women’s prison. In another, he discusses how using methamphetamine helped him successfully complete school while incarcerated.

While Lynch had once stated he was planning on suing the Georgia Department of Corrections for a second time in order to secure a transfer to a women’s prison, it is unclear if he is proceeding with his plan. In the Insiderpiece, he notes his projected release date is 2025.

By Anna Slatz

Anna is the Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief at Reduxx, with a journalistic focus on covering crime, child predators, and women's rights. She lives in Canada, enjoys Opera, and kvetches in her spare time.

#Drag queen sex offender #child sex trafficking #insider #I’m a Trans Woman of Color in an All-Male Prison. I had to fight for my right to gender-affirming care behind bars #Christina Alicia Lynch is Christopher Thomas Lynch #Giving a minor drugs #Steven Lemery #USA #Georgia #Alabama #South Carolina #Exploiting vulnerable minors #Pasha Nichole #ImprisonedPrincess

14 notes · View notes

guilty-feminist · 1 year

Text

#Tennessee has banned drag shows #guilty feminist #the guilty feminist #feminism #feminist #women’s rights #deborah frances white #human rights #instagram #woman’s rights #us news #trans rights #drag rights #drag queens #lgbtq #lgbtqiia+#🏳️‍🌈#🌈

10 notes · View notes

yenniferbodied · 7 months

Text

Woop small town Pride. 30 Sept

#abilene #transgender #gay #gay pride #parade #trans woman #trans rights #drag queen #drag king

2 notes · View notes

dantes-infernal-chili · 10 months

Text

The Queer A-Team (Gay-Team? Discuss.):

- A butch lesbian

- A drag queen

- A bear leather daddy

- A trans woman with a fuck-you-I'll-do-it-myself attitude

- Elton John is their contact who gives them the missions

- Their McGyver Crossover episode is Lil Nas X

#pride #lgbt #queer #high thoughts #a-team #butch #lesbian #bear #leather #lil nas x #elton john #trans #trans woman #trans rights #drag #drag queen

6 notes · View notes

fairyofthehollow · 4 months

Text

“i can’t think of anyone more deserving of person of the year than taylor”

think harder.

#my patience with her and her atrocious fans has thinned beyond belief #you’re hypocrites #you have no spine #you convince yourself into thinking she has no power to make yourself feel better #you claim you care about social justice issues #about feminism #about speaking up about what’s right #yet you fail to see that taylor has done the bare minimum regarding those things #when she has the social responsibility (because of her influence and because she literally gave herself that duty)#but nope!#everyone’s a misogynist for calling out her behaviour #which includes associating with a racist #having a n*zi boyfriend #being dead silent about drag queens and trans people being killed this year #the literal genocide happening right now #her not doing ANYTHING when fans came after a woman of a colour because of one of her tweets #you weaponise misogyny and sexism so you can continue to love her and praise her with no guilt or shame #or people “pestering” you to wake up and see what she’s done #it’s embarrassing #you’re embarrassing #don’t you dare say you care about social justice issues when you defend a person who has done NOTHING to help raise awareness to them like #your life depends on it #don’t you dare speak up about them if you have the inability to criticise her acknowledge her wrongdoings #taylor swift #person of the year

1 note · View note

genderkoolaid · 3 months

Note

The transandrophobia brainrot has hit tiktok hard. There's a sound going around right now that uses the T slur in a reclamatory way, but whenever a transmasc person uses the sound people lose their minds saying it's transmisogynistic for them to use that word. But when cis male drag queens use the audio it's a slay.

My answer to those people is Get Kate Bornstein'd:

Tranny. Many people don’t know the history of the word, they assume it was an assigned hate term or slur along the lines of the “n” word. That’s not how it happened. Tranny was invented by us in Sydney, Australia in the 1970s where drag was a big deal, and still the best drag shows ever are in Sydney, Australia – they’re amazing. So a lot of trans-identified women who were assigned male at birth did drag, that’s how you made your living. And so they were transsexuals, transvestites, drag queens, and they were all doing drag to make money. They all bickered amongst each other who is better than who, “Well the drag queens are better,” “No, the transsexuals are better.” “You are all freaks, we’re better.” And on and on and on. But they worked together and they were family together, so they came up with a word that would say family and that was tranny. In Australia they do the diminutive, that’s how they come up with words. So tranny. I learned the word in the mid-1980s, late 1980s from my drag mom in San Francisco, Doris Fish, who was the city’s preeminent drag queen and she’d come from Sydney. And she schooled me in this word tranny, she said, “This way it means we’re family, darling.” “Thank you mama.” [...] So we used it and we were trannies together. And F to M was just beginning to start, the trans men were just beginning to become visible, Lou Sullivan was a neighbor of mine around the corner, and he was the first big out trans man, wrote his book. So trans men and cross dressers . . . cross dressers were also family. Transsexuals, we were all trannies and that felt good. That got into the sex industry and became a genre – there was tranny porn, there were tranny sex workers – chicks with dicks, she-males. [...] And, my only guess is that people who . . . because the only way they would have found out about the word is if they were watching tranny porn or having been with a tranny sex worker and then hated themselves so much that they turned it into a curse word. So it’s not really technically correct to say we’re reclaiming a word – it was always ours. So, many people mistake the word for the hatred behind the word and, in my generation, and I’m sure in future generations of trans people, tranny is going to be a radicalized, sexualized identity of trans in the same way that faggot is a prideful identity in the gay male community – not all gay men are faggots, but those who are are proudly fags and those who are dykes are proudly dykes within the lesbian community, trannies are proudly tranny within the transgender community. Does that mean we can’t call ourselves that because some trans woman does not want to be called a tranny? No. I’m going to keep calling myself a tranny. To the trans woman who gets called tranny, I’m sorry – as soon as . . . you’ve got to look at why you’re getting called tranny and if you don’t pass, you’re going to be read as a transgender person and then you fall back on the cultural view of trans folk which is freak, disgusting, not worth living, we can hurt you. It has nothing to do with the word, it has everything to do with the cultural attitude. So the word has stirred up a shit storm, but it’s not the word.

^ From this interview

Four weeks ago, Bear posted a call for submissions on his blog. In the interests of keeping the call as open as possible, we agreed to include as many trans-identities as we knew, so we used the word "tranny." And that's where the activist shit hit the postmodern fan base. People have been pissed. Here's their argument: FTMs are co-opting a word that belongs to MTFs. The word "tranny" belongs to MTFs, reason those who were hurt by our use of the word, because it was a denigrating term reclaimed by MTFs—ergo, only MTFs could be known as trannies. I spoke with Bear, and we agree that’s wrong on several counts:

Tranny began as a uniting term amongst ourselves. Of course it’s going to be picked up and used as a denigrating term by mean people in the world. But even if we manage to get them to stop saying tranny like a thrown rock, mean people will come up with another word to wound us with. So, let’s get back to using tranny as a uniting term amongst ourselves. That would make Doris Fish very happy.

It's our first own language word for ourselves that has no medical-legacy.

Even if (like gay) hate-filled people try to make tranny into a bad word, our most positive response is to own the word (a word invented by the queerest of the queer of their day). We have the opportunity to re-create tranny as a positive in the world.

Saying that FTMs can’t call themselves trannies eerily echoes the 1980s lesbians who said I couldn’t use the word woman to identify myself, and the 1990s lesbians who said I couldn’t use the word dyke.

At one phase in the evolution of transpeople-as-tribe, it was the male-to-females who were visible and representative of trans to the rest of the world. They were the trannies. Today? Ironically true to the binary we’re in the process of shattering, the pendulum has swung so that it's now female-to-males who are the archetypal trannies of the day. The generation coming up beyond the next generation, i.e. my tribal grandchildren are the young boys who transition to young girls at the age of five or six. They’re the next trannies. None of us can own the word. We can only be grateful that our tribe is so much larger than we had thought it would be. How to come together—now that’s the job of the next generation of gender outlaws.

^ From Who You Calling A Tranny?

We've been having this debate forever and its been stupid forever.

And its an increasingly outdated debate. More people know about trans men&mascs than ever and there are plenty of TM&Ms who have been called tranny by transphobes who don't give a shit about this distinction. And not just people who have been mistaken for transfems, either, but men like Andrew Jonathan Blake-Newton and Saye Skye who were attacked by people who knew them. Do they have more or less of a right to say tranny than a trans girl whose never been called it by a transphobe? (Neither. Because no one owns this word.)

#m.#ask box

1K notes · View notes

layla-d · 21 days

Text

39 notes · View notes

rthko · 5 days

Note

please define camp. I see it said so much to describe anything.

@sougeeee Camp is an an aesthetic sensibility most famously described by Susan Sontag in her 1964 essay, Notes on Camp, where she disclaimed that "to write about camp is to betray it." The term has long been popular in queer circles, but exploded in popularity online with the 2019 Met Gala, themed and named after this essay.

Here are some characteristics of camp:

Camp is failed seriousness. I think a lot of uses of camp lately emphasize the silliness and lightheartedness but play down the melodrama and passion. Sontag writes here that camp "finds the success in certain passionate failures." Failure is a common theme in queer aesthetics and worldviews; as Quentin Crisp said, "If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style." Writing about performance artist Dynasty Handbag, José Muñoz described the "failure" of her work as "not an aesthetic failure but, instead, a political refusal."

Camp is innocent. The camp that is most satisfying to Sontag is not trying to be bad on purpose but dead serious in its grandiose intentions: "naive" camp. To do it on purpose is what she calls "camping," and this is what the Met Gala in 2019 ended up being. As it's been said on here, Karlie Kloss's claim that she was "looking camp right in the eye" was accidentally closer to camp concept of fabulous failure than the look itself. Admiring camp is not to point and laugh but to sincerely appreciate it. Sontag writes: "Camp taste is, above all, a mode of enjoyment, of appreciation - not judgment."

Camp is artifice. It involves a love of the unnatural and exaggerated, and this explains why most drag is not simply female/male impersonation. There's an undue association between femininity and artifice, especially when it comes to trans women, lesbians, working class and racialized women (Julia Serano most famously writes about this as part of the basis for transmisogyny). While it's important to challenge this, some have taken the approach of playing with this in a tongue-in-cheek way. In her essay "Rogue Femininity," Elizabeth Marston writes: "let's say that femme is dispossessed femininity. It's the feminity of those who aren't allowed to be real women and who have to roll their own feminine gender."

Camp is apolitical? One of the first points in Sontag's essay is that "To emphasize style is co slight content, or to introduce an attitude which is neutral with respect to content. It goes without saying that the Camp sensibility is disengaged, depoliticized - or at least apolitical." In a way I agree. This sort of detachment is why George Santos the right wing politician was obviously abhorrent, but George Santos the former drag queen and fallen diva was, unfortunately, very entertaining. Since Sontag wrote this essay before Stonewall, it must have been hard at the time to see any overlap between camp and politics. But as the examples I've chosen so far might show, I do see a political angle, and a political discussion to be had over which expressions of art and being are considered unnatural or unserious. For instance, Black queer art like the bejeweled collages of Mickalene Thomas and the exuberant sculptures made of trinkets by Nick Cave address the racial angle in the demarcation of high brow and low brow.

There's a legacy in queer politics that calls for a sort of hedonistic, bejeweled extravagance for all. Jules Gill-Peterson writes about the transfeminine travestis in Latin America, and a term they use,mujerisima. The English translation is less glamorous--"extremely woman" or "the most woman"-- but to Gill-Peterson this represents a vision of racialized, working class anti-austerity and anti-assimilationist sensuality and glamour. In A Short History of Transmisogyny, she asks: "What's wrong with being extra? Abundance might be a powerful concept in a world organized by a false sense of scarcity."

So for an in-depth description of camp, I still recommend Sontag's essay for its insight and cultural impact. She's right to address the association between camp and homosexuality, but the association between failed seriousness and excess with marginalized subjects doesn't stop there. So I hope people realize camp is not an irony-poisened, "doing it ironically" hipster thing, but a perspective and way of life to find real joy and freedom in.

336 notes · View notes

omgthatdress · 3 months

Text

I debated with myself whether or not to include Christine Jorgensen in my history of drag because technically, she was never a drag queen. She was never impersonating a woman, she was simply being a woman. However, her story was such a milestone and she was such an icon that it feels wrong not to include her.

Christine Jorgensen was the first American trans woman to undergo gender-reassignment surgery. Because her parents were immigrants from Denmark, she was able to travel there and stay through 1951 and 1952 while undergoing hormone therapy and then through several surgeries.

Christine was forcibly outed when a letter to her parents explaining her transition was leaked to The New York Daily News.

While she had intended to live a quiet, private life, Christine was gracious and humble when her return to the US was swarmed with photographers and reporters.

youtube

Even though she had never intended to cause such a storm of publicity, she never shied away from it. She used her platform to become a tireless defender of transgender rights, and was able to build her way into a successful career as an entertainer.

Even when faced with the most vile and violent transphobia, Christine was always poised, elegant, and quick-witted. Her style, charm and good humor endeared her to millions of fans. Her icon status is well-deserved.

#history of drag #drag #trans #transgender #trans history #transgender history #gay #queer #gay history #queer history #lgbt history #lgbt #Youtube

376 notes · View notes

lilacsupernova · 10 months

Text

In recent years, I've seen the erasure of lesbian and gay activists. And all the work we did for gay liberation is credited to two people: Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson. Even statues are planned to be elected in honor of them in New York. These two are now hailed for having organized the Stonewall Riot and the GLF [Gay Liberation Front] and even the historic gay occupation of Wernstein Hall at New York University in protest against the administration's homophobia. All of this is false. I know, because I and the women and men I worked with were there.

Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson are today widely celebrated as transgender people of color. However, Rivera identified as a transvestite male, not transgender. Malcolm, aka Marsha Johnson, was a self-proclaimed gay man, and drag queen, up until his death in 1992. Johnson deserves to be honored with respect and integrity, not rebranded as a 'trans-woman' postmortem. Johnson was probably transgender, though there was no such terminology at the time. Toward the end of his life he was considering raising funds to go abroad for what was then called a sex change surgery.

Nobody led the Stonewall Riots. It was a spontaneous uprising. Neither Rivera nor Johnson appeared on the scene until the riots were well underway. Neither Johnson nor Rivera attended any of the early meetings of GLF in July 1969. I was one of the founders, along with five other women and 13 men. Ellen Broidy and I were among those who called for the occupation of Wernstein Hall in September 1970. Johnson and Rivera were not present. They joined in after a group of us had already entered the building, and it was after the occupation that I first noticed them at GLF meetings. They were inspired by our Wernstein Hall action to start a new group, Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR).

This was important work they did and how they should be remembered. Through STAR, Rivera and Johnson labored on behalf of homeless street queens who, like themselves, often had to support themselves through prostitution, often strove to overcome drug addiction, and often found themselves in trouble with the law. They provided shelter and counseling, and visited those in prison. They were heroes in their own right. But the false legends have been widely promulgated in the international press, and give them credit for the work of hundreds of others, and never ever mention what they actually accomplished. The city of New York has not built any statues to any of us lesbians or any of the gay men who were involved in GLF. Just those two are the heroes. Stormé DeLarverie who is considered responsible for starting the first Stonewall Riot on June 28, 1969, after a crowd reacted when she was arrested by police, was a woman of color and and butch lesbian. She didn't get a statue either.

These smaller fabrications are perhaps not as dangerous as the ones that lead to war. But what is dangerous is that, by depicting one or two chosen individuals as great leaders and expunging the rest of us from public memory, they strip us all of the knowledge that we ordinary human beings have made history and can do so again.

– Martha Shelley, 'An Honest History' in Not Dead Yet: Feminism, passion and women's liberation – Renate Klein & Susan Hawthorne (eds.), (pp. 379-80).

#martha shelley #marsha p johnson #sylvia rivera #storme delarverie #lgb #pride #usa #herstory #pride month #trans

593 notes · View notes

guilty-feminist · 1 year

Text

#guilty feminist #the guilty feminist #feminism #feminist #women’s rights #deborah frances white #human rights #instagram #woman’s rights #uk news #american news #drag queen #drag queen news #march 2023 #drag queen rights #trans rights #fuck the gop

3 notes · View notes

skeletors-cock · 10 months

Text

every so often i hear people talk about the "loud" queer people and how annoying they are and I always think

I think of the first time I saw a trans woman in the aisle of a convenience store. i was 8 years old and had no idea what i was but in that moment i felt like i understood her more than anyone else i'd seen.

i think of the first time i saw two men kiss in a movie. my parents wouldnt let me watch it because it was "inappropriate," but i snuck in anyway and I wondered for the first time if not all boys liked to kiss girls.

i think of the first pride parade i've ever seen. barely aware of who i was and too scared to admit it to myself, i watched thousands of people celebrate their identity, in the face of overwhelming hatred. a drag queen handed me a rainbow sticker from across a police barrier. i think she knew.

i think of when i was 15 and began to change how i presented. i dyed my hair and dressed more androgynously. it was a baby step, and i was terrified of how people would see me. and so many people looked at me differently, but there were kids that looked so familiar, who looked at me and saw a friend.

i think of when i got a roommate for the first time, and tried desperately to pass so i wouldn't make her uncomfortable. she clocked me immediately and asked for my pronouns. she was the first queer person i'd ever dated.

i think of when i was buying soda at a convenience store a few weeks ago. i was so used to dressing gnc that i almost forgot it was strange to most people. i saw a little kid an aisle over, gaping at me. not hatred or ignorance, but curiosity and questioning, and maybe? maybe a little understanding of who i really was.

and i think about all the people that are uncomfortable with these displays, who say it's not right to show in public. and i think that maybe that's the point. because for every 10 people who look at me and see a disgusting tranny, maybe there's one person who feels a little safer. and i think that's worth it in the end

#not to get so emotional #t slur #just feeling poetic

396 notes · View notes

slopmaster9000 · 1 month

Text

My friend [...] asked me, "So if it's not about genitals, what is it about trans women's bodies that you find most attractive?"

I paused for a second to consider the question. Then I replied that it is almost always their eyes. When I look into them, I see both endless strength and inconsolable sadness. I see someone who has overcome humiliation and abuses that would flatten the average person. I see a woman who was made to feel shame for her desires and yet had the courage to pursue them anyway. I see a woman who was forced against her will into boyhood, who held on to a dream that everybody in her life desperately tried to beat out of her, who refused to listen to the endless stream of people who told her who she was and what she wanted was impossible.

When I look into trans women's eyes, I see a profound appreciation for how fucking empowering it can be to be female, an appreciation that seems lost on many cissexual women who sadly take their female identities and anatomies for granted, or who perpetually seek to cast themselves as victims rather than instigators. In trans women's eyes, I see a wisdom that can only come from having to fight for your right to be recognized as female, a raw strength that only comes from unabashedly asserting your right to be feminine in an inhospitable world. In a trans woman's eyes, I see someone who understands that, in a culture that's seemingly fueled on male homophobic hysteria, choosing to be female and openly expressing one's femininity is not a sign of frivolousness, weakness, or passivity, it is a fucking badge of courage. Everybody loves to say that drag queens are "fabulous," but nobody seems to get the fact that trans women are fucking badass!

— Julia Serano, Love Rant

58 notes · View notes