However, just recently it has been announced that this party has changed its position and will now allow the repeal to move forward

Unfortunately, there is still plenty of work to do, as it is clear that many governments around the world have similar laws. For example, it has been pointed out that, other than Sweden, the following European countries still require sterilization for gender change recognition: Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia Switzerland, Turkey and the Ukraine.

In my own experience, I’m glad to say that Texas (where I recently obtained a court order for name change and gender marker change from ‘M’ to ‘F’) has no such legal requirement (although it seems the rules are a bit vague and perhaps interpreted differently in different circumstances). I recall that I once had a thought about storing sperm myself before starting transition, although in the end it turned out to be too expensive. However, when I mentioned this idea to my doctor (who had otherwise been generally helpful) she gave me a strange expression and simply said she’d never heard of anyone doing that before.

Finally, here is the video featuring a Swedish trans man that was used to promote the campaign in Sweden (and worldwide). The campaign was spearheaded by AllOut.

In response, one of the white bar patrons smashed her glass against CeCe’s face, punctuating her cheek and lacerating her salivary gland. A fight ensued between the two groups, and in the end, Dean Schmitz was dead. And although multiple people were involved in the melee, when the police arrived CeCe was the only one charged.

Unfortunately, injustice does not end even there, as from this point the system took over in the enforcement of racism and trans-misogyny: from jail, in the late hours of the night, CeCe was coerced by detectives into signing a false confession, which she then recanted as soon as she was able. From that point, CeCe was then held in solitary confinement (which is a quite common abuse against trans women prisoners) supposedly for her own “protection,” but against her own wishes.

From this point, Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman charged CeCe with two counts of second degree murder. He has since refused to drop those charges, despite the fact that he has dropped charges in other cases this year under similar circumstances.

Fortunately, there has been an outpouring of support for CeCe, both from her local community and from many activists and allies across North America; she has also kept her own spirits high in the face of injustice. And a petition has been raised demanding that Michael Freeman drop all charges against CeCe (please sign the petition here).

Make no mistake, what CeCe is is being condemned for here is defending herself from bodily harm as a trans woman of color.

In other words, a group of people wanted to make clear that they view her physical body as inferior to their own white, cisnormative bodies, and when CeCe verbally resisted that violent designation, those people then resorted to physical violence to enforce hateful, white supremacist views. And further, when CeCe stepped up to defend herself from physical assault, the system stepped in to reinforce racism and trans-misogyny.

Again, here is the petition.

YT // ST album cover

However, ultimately Yamantaka // Sonic Titan represents a full scale multi-media art project aimed at decolonization, reclaiming appropriated sounds, mythologies and cultural motifs through music, illustration and performance art. As they say of themselves on their own website

Armed with mixed-race identities, mad illustration skills and a whole pile of home-brew junk electronics, alaska and Ruby wrote and performed the first mini ‘Noh-Wave’ Opera, ‘YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN I’ in April 2008. YT//ST continued to perform short homebrewed operas, eventually forming a network of Asian and Indigenous artists through collaboration and formed the current YT//ST collective.

The group also has Buddhist influences.

The present moment is an exciting time for the collective; they are presenting their rock opera ’33′ at the upcoming Rhubarb festival this week (Feb. 8 – 12) and it has just recently been announced that they will be performing in Minehead, UK at the upcoming iteration of the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival curated by Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel (OMG ATP that is huge!).

Regarding the debut album, I have to say I’ve enjoyed it immensely since I downloaded it. I’ll state it here that I’m friends with some of the band members, but trust me when I say this is not the kind of thing that you end up liking because you want to be nice to your friend. It’s more like the kind of thing you end up liking it so much you worry over gushing about it to them.

It took me a few listens to really get immersed in it, but the range and complexity of what they are doing on this short album is quite impressive. The cover is reminiscent of the opening sequence of the classic Japanese Anime Akira (intentionally so, according to Alaska B) and like the soundtrack to that film, ‘YT//ST’ starts off with a thunder strike. This begins the short intro track “Racoon Song” featuring a chant-like voice that builds up, feeding directly into the second track “Queens,” which continues the build-up by introducing synthesizers and giving the listener their first taste of Ruby Kato Attwood’s voice in a melodic, J-pop-esque format (in fact, it took me a couple of listens before my brain could process that at least some of the lyrics here are actually in English). However, when Alaska B’s high energy drums come in about a third of the way through, the song escapes into something more like rock opera with J-pop flourishes.

My favorite moments on the album would be the fifth and sixth tracks, ‘Hoshi Neko’ and ‘A Star Over Pureland.’ While I’m not so good with foreign languages, I did spend a bit of time in Japan, which helps me to pick up a few phrases in ‘Hoshi Neko,’ enough to recognize it was telling some personal narrative that I would naively just describe as very sweet. One thing though is that I could swear Ruby Kato Attwood was actually singing ‘Hoshi Noe Koe’ rather than ‘Hoshi Neko’ in the song.

I actually had an opportunity to chat with Ruby before their Jan. 28 show at Toronto’s Garrison. She described to me the background story to ‘Hoshi Neko,’ which was somehow even sweeter than I imagined. It turns out the Japanese phrase Hoshi Neko actually means “Hoshi cat,” however the song is about Ruby’s cat back in Montreal who was named Hoshi Noe Koe, meaning “voice from a distant star.”

At one point, Ruby made a short animation film based on Hoshi Noe Koe; she had only a single copy of this animation in 16 mm format (the original) that she mailed back to her home address in Montreal as she was traveling. However, the film didn’t arrive when she got home; to make matters worse, Hoshi Noe Koe himself disappeared around the same time. Ruby was distraught and looked everywhere for her cat with no luck. Without any leads, she had no choice but to focus on an upcoming move to Toronto (where she lives now).

However, the day before she left she walked by a house not so far from her home in Montreal and was happy to find Hoshi Noe Koe sitting outside; it turned out he had been taken in by a new family. Of course she wanted to take Hoshi with her, but there wasn’t enough time to work out the issue with the second family, so she contented herself knowing that her cat was safe and seemed happy in a new home. Then, arriving back at her own house, she found the 16 mm film had finally arrived, just before she left the city.

After concluding our conversation, later that night I found the concert itself to be really amazing; Yamantaka // Sonic Titan puts on a good show. They played the full album all the way through except for an additional song between the fourth and fifth tracks and another as the encore.

They opened the show with the introduction of a large double-headed paper maché dragon that wandered through the crowd over a drum medley from Alaska B. This was followed by a really tight presentation of the work from their album; to my ears it sounded note-for-note, with perhaps a small critique that the vocals got a bit drowned out in a few moments (though that could just as well be attributed to the acoustics of the venue). I particularly enjoyed the intense, high-energy performance of ‘A Star Over Pureland’ live. During the heavier parts of the song Ruby’s spikish, periodically-delivered “huh… huh… huh… huh…” creates a powerful atmosphere, almost like the entire room is on one giant repeating electric circuit. The combination with co-singer Ange Loft’s scream-singing, all over shredding guitar riffs, couldn’t make for a more compelling contrast.

In the end, the one minor critique that I would make of the album is that there are a couple moments (such as the beginning of the final track) that I wish had a bit more gradual build-up to the heavier parts (okay, but what criticism did you expect from the leftytgirl who is still mourning the loss of Isis?).

More than anything I would say that I am looking forward to seeing where this ambitious collective ends up, and I’m definitely looking forward to seeing (for my first time) their performance piece at Rhubarb Festival later this week. You should check them out too if you have the opportunity.

YT//ST performs at the Garrison (Savannah Garmon, rights reserved)

I think the recent incident of M.I.A. raising her finger at the Super Bowl kind of illustrates the point that her primary motivation might be more about getting attention rather than anything else.

The further point that she apparently hired three women as extras for each show on her last tour who were required to wear full burkas on stage possibly speaks to a tendency to orientalize Arab culture.

(Just as a small clarification on this point, I want to make clear that I fully and vocally oppose racist efforts by rightwingers and small-minded liberals to ban the burka (or niqab or hijab) in France, Quebec or elsewhere in the ‘West’).

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M.I.A. has recently debuted a new video* ‘Bad Girls’ in the lead up to the upcoming release of her fourth album. Personally, I was pretty into her first two albums Arular and Kala at one point, but didn’t get much out of the third album. This new video however just has me a bit puzzled.

Apparently, M.I.A. filmed this in Morocco to celebrate or glorify (or perhaps to simply culturally appropriate) the recent resistance Saudi women have been demonstrating against driving restrictions in their country.

After I pushed play when I saw the video in a friend’s facebook feed, my reaction shifted quickly from surprise to just being kinda weirded out. I won’t bother to give an in-depth analysis but I’ll just say it all feels very stereotyped and orientalizing, and it feels a bit cheap. Apparently I’m not the only one who came to similar conclusions.

I asked A Saudi friend of mine for her thoughts on the video. She responded:

[M.I.A.] is actually perpetrating stereotypes about Arabs. No wonder why she didn’t care to get people who actually know how to dance the Arab Gulf way or wear the proper Gulf garment. Her being a woman of color does not justify her taking up the cause and making this horrible video. There are lots of Saudi women who can respond and have responded to the ban on driving. Her video is just offensive.

*full disclosure: I admit I am writing this despite the fact that I could only stomach watching the video about 1.5 times.

In the last line of the articles she states

Let’s allow a transgender woman, for example, regardless of which private medical procedures she has undergone, to mark her passport “F,” and go on.

She is exactly right, given the present system that we work under. However I have to point out that ultimately I think the real solution is that gender markers should be removed from identification entirely. Otherwise, I think that problems like this will always arise, somehow or other.

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Update: So it seems there are some scattered reports showing up of trans people facing hassle based on these regulations. I want to emphasize that the regulations should definitely go. I think it would be helpful though if we had all those stories together about people being hassled before taking everything public.

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Yesterday a story suddenly broke in Toronto’s trans community: pre-op and non-op trans people would be immediately banned from flying! Indeed there is a quite troubling passage of Canada’s Identity Screening Regulations that reads

5.2 (1) An air carrier shall not transport a passenger if

…

(c) the passenger does not appear to be of the gender indicated on the identification he or she presents;

When this came to light, social media went ablaze with stories that trans people would be immediately banned from flying. However, it turns out that this problematic section of the regulations was apparently added July 29th, 2011. Personally, I am a non-op trans woman and I have boarded multiple international flights from Canada since that time with no problem.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that these regulations should not be challenged; in fact, we must challenge them. However, before making dramatic over-statements about the issue or drafting petitions over it, let’s take a moment and think about what’s really going on here.

For one thing, let’s think about what demographic most often gets banned from planes in North America. Here’s a hint: it’s not usually trans people. *

I called the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) [1 888 294 2202] to ask about the regulations. The person with whom I spoke stated that CATSA checks an individual’s boarding pass and that the boarding pass does not have a gender marker on it, which is certainly true.

My suspicion about this type of regulation is that probably it’s the kind of thing that rarely gets enforced when a privileged white trans person like myself visits the airport. That of course does not mean that we should not fight it; on the contrary, if gender non-conforming individuals from vulnerable racialized communities are targeted under this law, then we should push back with everything we’ve got. The thing is, we don’t know much about how this law is being enforced at present. Maybe it’s not being enforced at all, I have no idea. And before we respond to it, maybe we should figure out what it actually is first and who it actually impacts.

Just a thought.

*okay, unless they’re Muslim too, fair enough.

I am invited to more formal social functions, yet I often find myself outside the conversation, feeling awkward about my presence at the end of the table. My experience as a trans woman is often the most immediate story I have to share; yet as the other women nearby nod politely before changing the subject, I sometimes get the feeling I have only managed to other myself by sharing it. Unsurprisingly, this situation is not so conducive to meeting potential partners. And anyways, I sometimes get the feeling that my body does not have the same type of desirability.

Perhaps worse, there are moments when desire is expressed towards me in a context that I would prefer it not be expressed (more about that in a moment).

Previous to my transition, I was pretty deep in hiding. As a quirky intellectual-type with a good sense of humor I did attract women, but I often lacked the confidence to recognize attraction, much less act on it. And anyways it felt strange when others showed interest in my outwardly masculinized form.

Fortunately, as my physical body evolved during transition so did my confidence. And while I think my personality changed little, in the end I became the opposite of my pre-transition self in one respect: where previously I had been more timid, today I am forward and flirtatious (and good at making you laugh!). Generally dating is a bit more pleasant, and I do feel more involved in the game.

However, there are moments when I wonder if there wasn’t some quick saturation point I should have expected to encounter.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying that sex isn’t available. I actually turn down many who aren’t willing to share intimacy on terms that seem equitable to me. A good illustration of this point occurred recently on a dating site I use: a woman wrote to me a few months back with a great deal of interest based on my profile. She came on a bit strong for me, but I try to be open so I put in the effort of corresponding. After about three or four quite long messages I decided to disclose my trans status, just to avoid wasting time in case that would turn out to be a hang-up; unsurprisingly, I never heard from her again. While there is nothing so unusual about this, the fact that she was an academic with a Ph.D. in Social Policy and a Masters in gender studies had led me to believe she might be more open.

However, soon after I received an odd message from a second woman who was unusually forward and seemed to be looking for something specific. She insisted that I provide a description of my body while making it clear she was interested in a no strings sexual encounter, and further hoped she might eventually take me home for a three-way with her male partner. While I think we all get these kinds of messages occasionally, I noticed that these two women had visited my profile within a few minutes of each other, suggesting that the first woman probably tipped the second off about my trans status.

Put another way, once I revealed that I was trans I instantly ceased to be a viable romantic partner and instead became a potential fuck-toy; the fact that the second woman further insisted that I describe my body in detail almost screamed, “What have you got for us between your legs, tranny?!”

Indeed, it’s not unusual for me to hear back on conversations in which one cis woman will respond, “Oh, so you’re into kink” when another cis woman acknowledges she has previously dated trans women (including myself), implying that merely viewing a body like mine as sexually desirable is outside the bounds of ordinary human intimacy.

Hence I find myself in an unpleasant conundrum: de-sexed in polite lesbian society, yet hypersexualized at the margins (preferably behind closed doors, it would seem). Caught somewhere between untouchable and walking kink is a lonely place for any woman to live.

It is for these reasons, and more, that a group of trans women activists here in Toronto (with support from Planned Parenthood and an amazing cis woman Kate Klein) put together a recent workshop that was titled, “No more apologies: Queer trans and cis women, coming/cumming together!” The idea of the workshop was to provide an opening point for a larger dialogue about trans woman inclusion in queer women’s spaces/communities and social settings.

On the one hand, we addressed the manner in which trans women and cis women fight many of the same battles, as traditional sexism targets us all socially (among other ways), while misogyny undermines our common womanhood and humanity. On the other hand, we also addressed the various ways in which cissexism divides our communities from within. For example, trans-misogyny specifically dehumanizes trans women while further serving to alienate trans and cis women from one another, when we should otherwise be natural allies (if not lovers!).

Indeed, three key points we developed to describe the motivations for the workshop vis-a-vis the queer women’s communities were:

• Because trans inclusion means more than just saying “women and trans people” in our mission statements.

• Because welcoming trans women into our spaces is not the same as welcoming them into our beds.

• Because our actions are speaking louder than our words.

To be clear, our intentions in the workshop were not to question anyone’s attraction. However, there is no question that social context and social conditioning inform sexual desire. And given the number of times that I have lost a cis woman’s interest—which at times has been accompanied by outright disrespect—precisely at the moment that my status as a trans woman has been revealed betrays the fact that crude social anxieties often play a role (think “how will my friends react,” or the particularly silly “am I still lesbian if I sleep with her?”).

It is with this hands-off acceptance of trans women in mind that one of our organizers, Drew Deveaux, proposed “the cotton ceiling”; that is, the idea that queer acceptance of trans women often proceeds only to a point (that saturation point I mentioned previously).

However, there are other dynamics at play as well. For example, another project organizer, Morgan Page, has previously written about trans acceptance in ‘queer and trans’ spaces, and how this often essentially means acceptance for trans men exclusively. Personally, I like to think that the situation in this regard might be improving here in Toronto, and that trans men and trans women are at least more likely to work together these days. But while leaning against the wall at a party or a club, watching while masculine spectrum individuals get most of the attention, it’s not difficult to see Morgan’s point.

Overall, I think the workshop was a huge success; many of us here in Toronto are still reflecting on it, and some have already begun proposing the next events (with most of those proposals coming from cis women!). With that in mind, I sincerely hope that No More Apologies might provide a breaking point for a larger dialogue about trans woman inclusion, not only in queer women’s social settings but also in queer women’s politics.

In the meantime, if you’re a beautiful woman and I meet you on the street, there’s a pretty good chance that I’ll flirt with you and try to make friends. If you show interest, I promise I’ll play it off real sexy, like it’s no big deal. But I admit it: deep down what I’d really like to think is that if we share sexual intimacy, then maybe we could do something real kinky:

Talk.

Yeah, that sounds nice.

This article originally appeared at PrettyQueer.

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Christine Jorgensen

However, knowing that the Scandinavian countries have some similar laws, I wasn’t surprised this morning when I came across a petition regarding trans rights in Sweden. While I think the overall laws are somewhat more liberal than Denmark, it turns out that it is not possible to get a gender marker change in Sweden without a physician’s letter attesting to some type of medical sterilization. While of course bottom surgery (or possibly other procedures, such as hysterectomy in the case of trans men) is a big step in the transition process for some trans people, requiring this in order to have a simple gender marker change is ridiculous.

After all, many trans persons (including myself) may choose never to undergo such procedures. And I can’t help but think of a trans man friend of mine who recently gave birth to a beautiful child. Personally, I couldn’t be more proud of him and I think the fact that he birthed a child makes him more of a man, not less

Hence, please sign the petition to change this particular law in Sweden.

As for my old friend Denmark, it turns out that there was a similar petition at one time, however it appears that it was not successful

“No More Apologies: Queer Trans and Cis Women, Coming/Cumming Together!” is aimed at starting a dialogue about trans woman acceptance in the queer women’s community and further address the subtle ways in which trans-misogyny plays out in social dynamics even in supposed safe spaces.

In an upcoming blog post, I will give a more detailed account of my personal experience dating as a trans woman, relating how trans-misogyny serves to de-sex trans women’s bodies in certain circumstances, while hypersexualizing our bodies in others. In the meantime, those of us organizing the event look forward to seeing you on the 21st!

No More Apologies

The Sex Talk Series presents…

No More Apologies: Queer Trans and Cis* Women, Coming/Cumming Together!

A FREE conference about social exclusion, sex, and sexual health

No More Apologies is a day-long sex talk, designed to name and address the exclusion of queer trans women from broader queer women’s sexual communities.

Social exclusion negatively impacts trans queer women’s sexual, emotional, and psychological health; meanwhile, by excluding trans women from our communities, cis queer women are missing out on a multitude of sexy, wonderful women to love, fuck, and connect with.

Join us for this long overdue conversation and call-to-action about how to transform our talk about trans inclusion into practice.

Because trans inclusion means more than including trans men in our communities.

Because trans inclusion means more than just saying “women and trans people” in our mission statements.

Because welcoming trans women into our spaces is not the same as welcoming them into our beds.

Because our actions are speaking louder than our words.

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WORKSHOP SCHEDULE:
2:00-2:45 : “What we’re all here for”: Opening plenary by Drew DeVeaux

3:00-4:15 : Brazen: A pleasure-based sexual health workshop for trans women and the folks who are into us, facilitated by Morgan M Page

4:30-5:30 : Concurrent break-out sessions (facilitators TBA)
–> Trans women talk: A discussion on experiences of exclusion in the queer women’s community
–> Cis women talk: A discussion on trans women’s inclusion in the queer women’s community

6:00-7:00 : Coming/cumming together: A dialogue between trans/cis queer women (facilitators TBA)

9pm : Join us for Cum2GetHer, a post-conference dance party and the launch of BRAZEN: The Trans Women’s Safer Sex Guide, a new guide from the 519 Church Street Community Centre. Hosted by Drew DeVeaux with homo-gogo’s and music by DJ L-Rock (Yes Yes Y’All) and DJ Mama Knows (Get It | Got It | Good)! While the conference is only for queer trans and cis women, all are welcome to the party!

To pre-register, or for more information, please contact Kate at kklein@ppt.on.ca or 416-961-0113, x. 123

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THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW:
- This conference welcomes both trans and cis women who have sex with women
- The conference space is wheelchair accessible, and interpreter/attendant services can be made available upon request. TTC tokens will also be made available for conference attendees. Please let us know if there are any other ways that we can make this conference accessible for you!
- For the well-being of attendees with multiple chemical sensitivities, we ask that you please avoid wearing scented products like perfume, cologne, scented lotions, or any other chemical-based products to the event.

ABOUT THE NO MORE APOLOGIES WORKING GROUP: The No More Apologies working group (comprised of Morgan M Page, Mara Pereira, Savannah Garmon, Rebecca Hammond, and Kate Klein) is a group of queer trans and cis women who came together as part of the Sex Talk Series to think of ways to fill the gaps in sexual health promotion for trans women who have sex with women. Special thanks also go to Terri Mathews and Sally Lewis for their contributions to the project.

ABOUT SEX TALK: This event is part of “Sex Talk 2: A Sexual Health Workshop Series for LGBTQ Women”. Sex Talk is a project of Planned Parenthood Toronto, in partnership with the 519 Church Street Community Centre and Sherbourne Health Centre. Sex Talk 2 is generously funded by the Community One Foundation.

Towards the beginning of 2008, about a year after I graduated from the University of Texas, I took a year-long research position in Paris. Without going into all the details, this turned out to be an extremely difficult period of my life in which I experienced workplace harassment, deep isolation and severe depression. It was already a kind of in-between period for me as I took steps towards living fulltime as a woman a year later; yet, I made a difficult agreement with my mother to keep my transition secret during that time following a disturbing experience involving another family member.

Fortunately, I made it through those experiences and towards the end of my time in France I prepared to begin my life as a woman. However, I remember the sinking feeling I had in my stomach when I asked my advisor to provide a letter of recommendation using my chosen name with appropriate female pronouns and he flatly refused.

I was fortunate enough to find something (my present position here in Toronto) relying solely on recommendations from my previous research associates, however the fear I experienced for my career was intense, and I can’t help but think that other trans people in a similar situation might not have such good fortunes.

Fast forward to my time here in Toronto: as an activist in the queer and trans community I have had a fair amount of interaction with Xtra! in my two years here. A lot of this interaction has been positive; during the free speech debates surrounding Pride 2010, Xtra! took a principled editorial line in favor of freedom of expression and I would argue there have been a lot of positive outcomes from that. For example, the first trans person was elected to the board of Pride in 2011, something I find hard to imagine happening had it not been for the events of the last two years.

However, I’ve had awkward interactions with some Xtra! staffers. For example, one night last summer I happened to share beers with two cis men on Xtra! staff (I will keep their names to myself). Most of this was cordial enough, but there was a weird moment when the subject of trans rights came up (seemingly out of nowhere, I didn’t bring it up) and one of these gentlemen proceeded to argue that the need for federal protections on the basis of gender identity were overrated since such legislation would not likely be applied in many real world legal situations.

I view this differently: there is an education process that accompanies the bill, and passing it would provide a victory to a community that could use one. And anyways, recent events show that such legislation might have value in real world legal circumstances after all. However, I am not closed to debating these questions, and it’s fine that some Xtra! staff might view the issue differently.

Where I do have a problem is in the fact that while these opinions were made, neither of the cis people involved made eye contact with me even though I was the only trans person present; it felt a bit like I was in a room with people who are talking about me as if I’m not there. Indeed, the all-knowing tone of the conversation made me feel like I had to butt in just to express my view (on trans issues!).

From this experience, I wasn’t all that surprised when I read the following part of Danny’s statement on our boycott:

… the tenor of the discussion quickly changed and, in fact, any helpful, informative dialogue that could have come from this story turned into bad activism and knee-jerk bandwagon jumping.

I was once again being bullied, asked to apologize for being transphobic. “Activists” told me if I failed to apologize on behalf of Xtra for my transphobia, they would boycott this newspaper. The trans community would boycott a newspaper that is a lone voice for trans issues; and yes, these people deigned to speak on behalf of the entire trans community.

I find it disingenuous that Danny laments the lack of “informative dialogue” when in fact he not only refused to take Lexi’s calls, he actually blocked her on Facebook when she politely asked him to remove her birth name from his page (I have seen the conversation, believe me when I say that she is very polite). It is difficult to have dialogue when an individual actively refuses to listen.

Which was exactly the point of our boycott: it was a way of compelling Danny to take Lexi’s call; it was a way around a block on Facebook. Hence our boycott did not ‘shut down the discussion,’ on the contrary, it was the boycott that enabled meaningful dialogue on the issue. It also served to level the playing field between an editor at a major media outlet and a grassroots community activist and sex worker with little relative media power.

Regarding the importance of the name issue itself, I’m proud to say that I did eventually compel my former boss to refer to me as Savannah, though it took about two years, long after I had departed Paris. I accomplished this by gradually isolating him; the cis women in our lab were easiest to convince, then after a while I flipped the cis man researcher who was the third author on a paper with my former boss and myself. This served to isolate my advisor in our email correspondence and over time it became too awkward to continue using my birth name.

Further, I have myself been misgendered in print before, and in that case I had to debate with the editor why it was inappropriate and why it felt to me like it was an intentional stab at my identity (personally I feel it was a way for a writer who already desired to marginalize my voice regarding an unrelated issue to do so on the basis of my trans identity).

I would like to ask: how am I supposed to convince the transphobic mainstream press and bosses of this world that using my birth name or incorrect pronouns is totally inappropriate if even my supposed “ally” believes that doing so might be acceptable under certain circumstances, even without my permission? (And yes, if Danny feels justified in referring to me as a trans “activist,” then I am justified in referring to him as a trans “ally”).

Then there is Danny’s arrogant claim that “[Xtra! is] a lone voice for trans issues.” The fact is those of us in the trans community are very much capable of speaking for ourselves. Certainly those of us involved managed to tell the story of our boycott quite well, didn’t we? Even though that was primarily promoted by word-of-mouth on social media and my rinky-dink blog. We didn’t rely on big media to carry our voices; the power of our message carried itself.

Hence, the way I see it is this: yes, telling our story in the trans community with Xtra! helping to project our voices would be ideal. However, if a respectful relationship can’t be maintained, then we will find another way.

Here I will make two specific recommendations for Xtra on how to develop the type of relationship to which I am referring. First, it has already been suggested that Xtra! should modify its page header to include bi and trans people. Secondly, I would point out that a media organization no more radical than GLAAD has put out a set of guidelines for respecting trans individuals in the media; if Xtra! had already adopted these guidelines (or something similar), probably none of this would have happened.

In the end, I hope that this incident will someday be viewed as a mere bump on the road to developing that type of respectful relationship. But in order for that to happen, dialogue must go both ways: certainly cis allies should feel compelled to listen when trans people are speaking about their own identities and their own experiences. Hopefully if that happens, then we can do away with all these kinds of ‘quotations’ around identities, and get back to sharing all our stories with the outside world.

Note: Xtra! declined to publish this article in any form.

Cross posted at The Transadvocate.

The description the artists have included on the video states:

In light of recent events in the Canadian lgbt press where trans folks have had their right to choose their name or pronoun taken away, we thought we would sing this love song for the community.

Personally, I think the song is really adorable <3