#trans literature

[gatheringbones]

[“When I asked focus group participants again about body hair and their desires for women, Adam responded:

That’s what makes the woman different, her body, I don’t mind uh having hair in certain specific parts on her body um . . . in general I . . . like woman to be clean. Just in certain areas. But like I said, down in the genital, like it’s okay for me.

Hair, for Adam, Musiteli, and other participants, served as the visual representation of the differentiation between “men” and “women.” Further, Adam referred to a woman being hairless not only as “proper” but “cleanly,” as well.

Often, when I asked participants specifically about genital hair, the response was that they did not prefer hair due to cleanliness, hygiene, and other such myths surrounding body hair. The idea that hairlessness is cleanly is reflected in colloquial discourse (e.g., “clean shaven”). Ryan, an Indian American, cis-het man, explained to me his distaste for a “bush” or a large amount of hair genitally:

I just think like it's better to sometimes, maybe, fully shave it, like coordinate with your partner if you're going to do that, because then it could help but like, yeah, if like two people both have bushes then like you don't know what's going on. And, also, it's just like, cleaner. Like in terms of like keeping it clean. It's easier when you have less hair in those areas.

When I asked Liz, a cis-lesbian, Latina woman, whether she cares if a woman shaves her armpits and genitals or not, she similarly responded, “Yes (laughs). Yes definitely. It’s just . . . um . . . how should I call it? Hygiene. Hygiene.”

In Ryan, Liz, and Adam’s discourse, pubic hair is conceptualized as unclean, non-hygienic, and obtrusive. Such ideas, again, are not mere individual preference but are instead shaped by cultural and generational understandings of hair. Herzig highlights that “the normalization of smooth skin in dominant U.S. culture is not even a century old,” with such ideas arising during the same years as the Cold War with individuals in the United States describing “visible body hair on women as evidence of a filth, ‘foreign’ lack of hygiene.” Porn and the framing of sexually explicit material have also shaped cultural understandings of pubic hair. While pubic hair removal for women went out of vogue after the nineteenth century, it became popular once again in the 1980s, in part, due to pornographic depictions largely including hairless vulvas, and more recently, hairless bodies for men, as well. Cultural discourse surrounding pubic and body hair is, thus, shaped by racialized, gendered, and xenophobic understandings of the body and hair. The fact that these ideas are shared by immigrant participants/participants of color does not deny the racialized and xenophobic roots of such discourse, so much as it highlights the internalization of racism and xenophobia by immigrants and/or people of color, as an adaptive response to the racism of society.

As participants conceptualized hair as animal-like, masculine, and/or filthy, they also conceptualized of it as excess or surplus to the human (woman’s) body. Pubic hair shaped their idea of what it means to do womanhood and to be a woman. As such, participant discourse not only was shaped by racist, sexist, and xenophobic conceptualizations of hair that have proliferated in the United States but also cissexist concepts of manhood and womanhood as opposite, different, and biologically based. That which is “improper to manhood/womanhood within White schemas of a gender binary are unnatural, unclean, and undesirable.”]

alithia zamantakis, from thinking cis: cisgender heterosexual men, and queer women’s roles in anti-trans violence, 2023

[nekhcore]

HEY YOU!

Yeah, you! Are you trans? Do you like reading books? Or watching movies?

Do you like media about trans men/transmasculine characters but don't know where to find it?

That's sooo crazy because I have this little spreadsheet I'm working on where I'm trying to document all media with protagonists/major characters who are FTM or transmasculine.

The spreadsheet currently has 400+ entries spread across the following categories:

Books

Manga

Memoirs and non-fiction

Movies

TV Shows

Graphic novels / Comics

Webcomics

Audio dramas

Books and movies are also sorted by:

Which character is trans (MC, love interest, antagonist, etc)

If the trans character is POC

The trans character's sexuality (Because I saw lots of transhet guys sad about only being able to find gay romances)

If the author/actor is also trans (if we know for sure)

It's free to use, and free to add to as well! Editing permissions are on, and I check on the spreadsheet every now and then to make sure everything is in order and to clean up.

If you know something that isn't on the list, please add it! You don't have to fill in every single column, but fill it to the best of your abilities.

If you don't want to use the big ass long link below, you can also use: bit.ly/FTM-protags

I made this because I want it to be a community resource. So even if you're not a trans guy or transmasculine person, please reblog!

[thetransfemininereview]

THIS IS A CALL TO ACTION. Censorship affects all of us, and if Project 2025 gets its way, the entire trans publishing industry is at a significant risk of criminalization. In this article, I lay out the problem and the stakes, and suggest a broad action plan with dozens of potential response ✊

[floral-ashes]

Remember when I published this in a serious journal and everyone thought it was very funny?

Well, Gender/Fucking: The Pleasures and Politics of Living in a Gendered Body is basically where I stake my claim at being a depraved freak. 😉

Don’t wait! Get your copy now! Available on Bookshop and plenty more.

[selenedistress]

[sydsixxftm]

There comes a point in every tboy's life when it's time to choose

[genderqueerdykes]

"If we took just five minutes to recognize each other's beauty, instead of attacking each other for our differences. That's not hard. It's really an easier and better way to live. And ultimately, it saves lives. Then again, it's not easy at all. It can be the hardest thing, because loving other people starts with loving ourselves and accepting ourselves."

"I'd rather feel pain while living than hiding."

an excerpt from Elliot Page's memoir titled "Pageboy".

[jjjackalope]

"INKED" by J.J. Jackalope out now!!

Have you guys considered what the world might've be like if sometime a century ago, people started being born with ink embedded into their skin, and powers at their fingertips? No? Well you should start, because I have the new-age queer book for you.

Think X-Men meets coming-of-age meets a bit of Percy Jackson action.

My goal is to give a sense of belong to anyone whose eyes grace my work. I know how important rep is to every minority and I want to do everything I can to give that representation.

Check out my website to learn more and buy!

Here's the book blurb :)

After being in online school for the last four years, Scottlin Vincino starts his Junior year at a new private boarding school an hour from home. It should have been similar to any other in-person school-- but alas, they had everything Scottlin didn’t. 

A mark. 

He'll have to keep it a secret, but it gets tricky when you have a knack for ending up in the infirmary… Whether it be for the hot boy you just met, or you're swept up in one of the freak accidents at the school that seem to just keep happening. 

Scott will have to juggle his sexuality, his grades, and his new friends all while solving the mystery of what is happening to his new academy.

[belovedapollo]

I started reading Can the Monster Speak ? by Paul B. Preciado and it’s hitting home a little bit too hard 📚 reblog is ok, don’t repost/use

[damnesdelamer]

Leslie Feinberg

I collected some of the works of one of our greatest comrades and warriors:

Transgender Liberation: A Movement Whose Time Has Come

Stone Butch Blues

Transgender Warriors: Making History From Joan Of Arc To Dennis Rodman

Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink Or Blue

Rainbow Solidarity In Defense Of Cuba

Remember, our first duty is to be educated, so arm yourselves with the best information. We have always existed, and we always will. And in each generation, we must remember those who came before us, and become the warriors that ze fought to equip. Stay strong, stay proud, and solidarity forever.

[stonebutchooze]

Reading stone butch blues changed my life. I'd never seen my experience discussed, understood, immortalised in history. Nowadays people see lesbians and trans masculinity as so far apart from one another, but historically we were often one community.

Stone Butch Blues is the only time I have been able to wholly relate to a character's experience of gender— being a butch lesbian, not really feeling like a woman, having trans masculine experiences and ending up in a place that involves all of that, yet not many people understand. I routinely refer to myself as a man, butch, lesbian, genderqueer, nonbinary and I feel so grounded and together with my community when I read Stone Butch Blues. It also acknowledges a whole bunch of stuff around sexual assault and harrassment that butches get.

There's a weird relationship between how often more feminine looking folks get harrassed Vs how masculine folks get harrassed. No experience is worse or greater. My femme friend gets catcalled a hell of a lot more than me, but I've had more men feel entitled to dissect what I must be like sexually.

And Stone Butch Blues shows that a lot of men definitely do not like us or just consider us one of the guys. There's a hatred there, but with a smaller group of men— for example, Duffy, in the book— there's friendship and allyship.

[gatheringbones]

[“In my interviews with cis-het men and cis-LBQ women, nearly all participants (28/32) emphasized a desire for a natural look in a woman as regards hair and makeup and a desire for a muted or toned-down expression. It is important to ask, though, what constitutes a natural look? Does a natural look include wearing minimal, skin tone makeup? Does it include using only moisturizers, exfoliators, and cleansers but not wearing makeup? Or does a “natural look” refer to a completely unadulterated face—hair, pimples, and all? This list of question continues to grow when shifted to “natural hair.” I include within this category of natural hair and natural makeup a discussion of a desire for a muted or toned-down expression, as participants expressed a desire to see women in their “natural” element without bold aesthetics, makeup, or hair. The desire among participants for a muted aesthetic and natural hair/makeup connects around racialized and gendered views of how the body is stylized and expressed. As regards aesthetic, hair and makeup, participants detailed a disdain for that which is deemed “excessive.” What does it mean, though, for certain ways of looking, acting, and being to be considered excess and others to be considered natural?”]

alithia zamantakis, from thinking cis: cisgender heterosexual men, and queer women’s roles in anti-trans violence, 2023

[bones-ivy-breath]

Medusa with the Head of Perseus by Torrin A. Greathouse, from Wound From the Mouth of a Wound

[thetransfemininereview]

Thinking about how badly I need more aroace rep in trans fiction right now 😓 I would love to read a book about a bunch of trans women who do cool shit and have complex emotions that aren’t about dating or sex. That’d be neat #aceweek

[elamimax]

Hey, you there, do you ever feel like no matter how hard you try, you can barely keep up? Like you'll never be good enough or smart enough or simply too broken to be of use to anyone?

I wrote you a book.

For pride month, I made it free on itch.

I'm not kidding. This is for you. To have. It's a love letter to you specifically. It's about food and mermaids and daring to have the audacity to fall in love with tomorrow again.

I wrote it for you.

You reading this.

This is for you.

It's going to be okay.

[asofspades]

I'm foaming at the mouth with my self-gifted bday gift

These limited editions are so freaking cool!!

Plus Hell Followed With Us is hand signed by the author

And these are only the front illustrations, the spine and back illustrations as well as the ones inside the books are absolutely gorgeous . I've been wanting to read The Spirit Bares its Teeth and Compound Fracture since I finished Hell Followed With Us. I'm so excited!!