10 Things I know about … Gender

By Sarah Gustafson

10) Sex, sexuality, and gender are terms often used interchangeably. However, they are three distinct facets of who we are.

9) Gender identity can change throughout a lifetime. According to the Irregular Report 2 Fluidity, almost a quarter of the Gen Z population expects to change their gender as least once during their lifetime.

8) Many other countries have more than two gender identities. In the U.S., gender has traditionally been thought of in the binary, i.e. man and woman. Other countries and cultures have other options such as two-spirit and hijras reflecting a broader, more nuanced representation of gender.

7) A person’s gender can differ from or correspond to the sex they were assigned at birth.

6) Identity is one aspect of our gender. Gender identities can typically be categorized by binary, non-binary, and ungendered.

5) Gender has social aspects to it. Social gender includes roles and expectations and how society uses those to try to enforce conformity to current gender norms.

4) Understand your own gender story. Our gender is personal because while we share some of these aspects of self with others, how these identities, influences, and characteristics come together is unique to each of us.

3) Understanding gender is smart business. Consumers and employees are living in a gender-diverse world. Companies need to be able to adapt and think outside the binary world to not alienate their target audiences.

2) What companies can do. Start by looking at process, systems, and people. Recognize where gender is being asked for and not needed, or where gender is being asked for using sex identifiers.

1) Gender is evolving. This is a complex and ever-changing topic. Establish a common language framework for your company and employees to work within. Give yourself and others compassion as we work towards meeting the humans in our lives where they are.

Complete Article HERE!

18 Types of Sexuality To Know for Greater Understanding About Yourself and Others

By Korin Miller

There are a number of different types of sexuality, and by learning about each, you can cultivate a better understanding about yourself and others. And since language is always evolving, staying abreast of the different types of sexuality is important for both creating an authentic relationship with yourself and being an inclusive ally for all people. “The constantly evolving lexicon provides more options that can help people explore themselves,” says Corey Flanders, PhD, sexual-health disparities researcher and associate professor of psychology and education at Mount Holyoke College. “The range of sexuality terms available means that more people will find something that resonates with their experience.”

Words matter, and when those words connect to nuanced forms of identity, they matter even more. Such is the case for why it’s so important for all people to understand the different types of sexuality. To contextualize it differently, consider Dr. Flanders’ following example about ice cream: “I had a teacher once who described it in terms of ice cream flavors,” she says. “What if your favorite ice cream flavor was kale, but you never knew that about yourself because it was never an option? And then one day, maybe you come across kale ice cream and love it, and now understand yourself as a person whose favorite ice cream is kale-flavored.”

“Sexuality is full of diversity, and awareness of different types helps build acceptance and understanding of these differences.” —Shannon Chavez, PsyD, sexologist

The implications of understanding the different types of sexuality are, of course, further reaching and more important than ice cream flavors. “Sexuality is full of diversity, and awareness of different types helps build acceptance and understanding of these differences,” says Shannon Chavez, PsyD, resident sex therapist with K-Y. “It breaks down stereotypes, judgments, and myths about different sexual populations. Sexuality is a central part of your identity and who you are, and learning more about your own sexuality as well as others’ can be an empowering and positive experience.”

To be sure, understanding your own sexuality can be beneficial for myriad reasons. It “can help you connect to other folks who share a similar experience, which we know is important for supporting the health and well-being of queer people,” Dr. Flanders says. “For me personally, I grew up in a time and a place where bisexuality and queerness weren’t options that were known to me. Once I met people who used those terms to describe themselves, it provided a framework for me to understand myself and my sexuality in a way that enabled me to communicate it to myself and others.”

And in fact, learning about the types of sexuality—even if you feel you already have a strong understanding of your own identity—can help destigmatize and remove shame surrounding the space for others. “I do believe we are going through a new sexual revolution where people are more open with their unique identities, bringing awareness to pronouns and gender identities, and freedom to express who you are sexually without fear and shame,” Dr. Chavez says.

While, again, the types of sexuality are constantly evolving and growing, below, you can find a breakdown of many up-to-date terms and their meaning, according to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and the University of Connecticut’s Rainbow Center:

18 types of sexuality to know about for a deeper understanding of yourself and others

1. Allosexual

This is a person who experiences sexual attraction.

2. Aromantic

An aromantic is one of many romantic orientations that describes someone who experiences little or no romantic attraction to another person.

3. Androsexual

An androsexual is sexually attracted to men or masculinity.

4. Asexual

People who are asexual have a lack of attraction to other people.

5. Bicurious

A person who is bicurious is interested in or curious about having sex with someone whose sex or gender is different from their usual sexual partners.

6. Bisexual

A bisexual is someone who is emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to more than one sex, gender, or gender identity. This is a term that is sometimes used interchangeably with “pansexual,” which more specifically describes someone who is attracted to people without regard to their gender identity.

7. Demiromantic

This is a person who has little or no ability to feel romantically attracted to someone until they form a strong sexual or emotional connection with a person.

8. Demisexual

A demisexual does not experience sexual attraction until they have a strong romantic connection with someone.

9. Gay

A person who is gay is emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to people of the same gender identity. This term is often used by men, women, and non-binary people.

10. Heteroflexible

People who are heteroflexible often identify as heterosexual but may experience situational attraction that falls outside of that.

11. Heterosexual

This term describes people who identify as men who are attracted to people who identify as women, and vice versa.

12. Lesbian

A lesbian is someone who identifies a woman or as non-binary who is emotionally, romantically or sexually attracted to other women. The term is used by women and non-binary people.

13. LGBTQ

This acronym is used for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer.”

14. Pansexual

A pansexual is a person who has the potential for emotional, romantic or sexual attraction to people of any gender identity or sexual orientation.

15. Queer

This term describes a spectrum of sexual identities other than exclusively heterosexual.

16. Questioning

People who consider themselves questioning are currently exploring their sexual orientation.

17. Same-gender loving

This is a term that’s used by some people instead of “lesbian,” “gay,” or “bisexual” to explain their attraction to someone of the same gender identity.

18. Skoliosexual

A person who is skoliosexual is attracted to people who are non-binary.

Complete Article HERE!

What Does Cisgender Mean, Exactly?

Gender therapists and educators break things down.

By Gabrielle Kassel

Whether you heard the term ‘cisgender’ flung around on Vaderpump Rules, at your last doctor’s appointment, or on social media and are wondering WTH the word means, you can quit looking for your answer because it’s here.

Below, three gender therapists and educators explain what ‘cisgender’ means and how it differs from ‘transgender’ and ‘non-binary.’ Plus, they share tips for exploring your own gender, which (spoiler alert!) they recommend everybody try!

Cisgender, A Definition

Put simply, cisgender is a word for someone’s gender aligns with the sex they were assigned at birth, explains Jesse Kahn, L.C.S.W., C.S.T., director and sex therapist at The Gender & Sexuality Therapy Center in NYC. Important: Cisgender is an adjective, not a noun, they say. Meaning, someone is not ‘a cisgender’. They’re a cisgender man, cisgender woman, or cisgender person.

Confuzzled by some of the terms in the above definition? Let’s clarify. Gender refers to a set of behaviors, interests, and roles that society uses to put you in the “woman”, “man”, “non-binary” or “other gender” box. Basically, gender is the way a person moves through the world, and what they wear as they do it.

Also known as someone’s natal sex, sex assigned at birth is a label given to newborns (and sometimes fetuses) based on factors like hormones, genitals, and chromosomes. Doctors use this info to put ‘male’ or ‘female’ on the birth certificate.

(Worth knowing: About one percent of people are born intersex, meaning they have sex characteristics that do not neatly nearly into neither the male or female box, says Rae McDaniel, a non-binary licensed clinical counselor and gender and sex therapist based in Chicago. Sadly, most doctors wait to fill out the birth certificate until the newborn has undergone treatments that force them into one of two categories).

Someone is cisgender when they are man and were assigned male at birth (AMAB), or when they are a woman and were assigned female at birth (AFAB).

Cisgender vs. Transgender

Transgender is the word used when someone’s gender does not align with their assigned sex at birth. “The prefix ‘trans’ means on the other side of,” explains McDaniel. So someone is transgender if they have a gender that is on a different side of their sex assigned at birth, they say.

Need some examples? Think about trans-celebrity Elliot Page, who was assigned female at birth and is a man. Or Laverne Cox who was assigned male at birth and is a woman!

For the record: Both of these Netflix stars are what would be considered binary trans people. “Someone whose gender is not aligned with their sex assigned at birth and does fit neatly into the ‘man’ or ‘woman’ box is a binary trans person,” explains McDaniel.

Someone whose gender is not aligned with their sex assigned at birth and does not fit neatly into those boxes — for instance, is non-binary, agender, genderqueer, to name just a few non-binary trans identities — is known as a non-binary trans person, they say. (Think: Demi Lovato or Jonathan Van Ness). The more you know!

How Do I Know If I Am Cisgender?

“You are cisgender if your gender correlates to the sex you were assigned at birth, and gender your parents assumed you were and raised you are,” says Kahn. “For example, if when you were born and the doctors were like “it’s a girl!” and you grow up to be a woman, you’re cisgender,” he says.

According to pleasure-based, queer- and polyamory- inclusive sex educator and sex-positivity advocate Lateef Taylor, most cisgender folks never ever question their gender. So if you’ve never thought, “Wait, am I actually a girl??” or felt like your gender was a too-tight pair of jeans, odds are you are cisgender. (Yes, even if you’ve never heard this identity term until now!).

If, however, you don’t feel like the gender you’ve been living in is the “right” gender, you may not be cisgender. In this instance, Kahn notes that there are a variety of words you might use to name your lived experience and gender. Including non-binary, transgender, non-binary and transgender, or any other gender identity term.

4 Tips For Exploring Your Gender

“Critically exploring your gender, and questioning how you want to dress and express yourselves is beneficial to everyone,” says McDaniel. So no, these tips aren’t just for non-binary and transgender folks!

“Doing so can help people across the gender spectrum experience a kind of gender freedom,” they say.

1. Give yourself a Gender 101 course.

“Start by educating yourself on what gender is, various gender terms such as non-binary and transgender, and what the differences are between things like gender identity and gender presentation,” suggests Kahn. The Gender Reveal, En(ba)by, and Queery podcasts are all good sources for this.

(FTR: Gender presentation and gender expression encompasses things like how you dress, act, talk, and walk and it does not have to match your gender identity).

2. Interrogate your own preconceived notions.

Beyond just educating yourself on the terminology, “it’s important to also reflect on your familiarity with, relationship to, and underlying judgments and assumptions of the people and communities that embody these identities, expressions, and experiences,” says Kahn.

While we all have judgments, and it’s OK that we do, he says, “we do need to be aware of and work to unlearn, not perpetuate, those judgments.”

One way to unlearn those judgments is by following people across the gender spectrum on Instagram. Another way is to consume memoirs by non-binary, transgender, and gender non-conforming folx. I recommend starting with Amateur by Thomas Page McBee and Sissy by Jacob Tobia.

3. Do some deep thinking.

Better yet, grab a journal. Then, Khan suggests jotting down thoughts on questions like: What does gender mean to me? How might I describe my gender? What words resonate for me? What’s my gender presentation and how does that differ or feel aligned with my gender?

4. Focus on what brings you gender joy.

Often, says McDaniel, when people talk about how to explore your gender there’s a lot of attention on what clothing, expectation, and roles make you feel icky. How un-fun!. “But rather than focusing on all the things that make you feel bad, it can be helpful to think about what things make you feel good,” they say. (Things that make you feel good in your gender are often known as gender euphoric).

Your job: Make a list of all the articles of clothing, activities, chores, colors, hairstyles, and makeup #lewks that make you feel gender bliss. Then, lean into them and continue leaning into them.

Complete Article HERE!

The push for LGBTQ equality began long before Stonewall

The value of restoring the LGBTQ rights movement’s radical roots

By Aaron S. Lecklider

The annual raising of rainbow flags outside America’s strip malls and the bounty of LGBTQ-friendly swag being hawked inside them can only mean one thing: Pride month is upon us. Ostensibly commemorating the birth of the gay liberation movement, Pride also points to the outsize influence of Stonewall as a singular catalyst for sparking LGBTQ liberation.

And yet, there were activists advocating for LGBTQ Americans decades before the gay liberation movement of the 1960s. This history has been largely forgotten, because their work was tied to a radical social movement critiquing capitalism.

Thanks to the Cold War and the “Red Scare,” gay rights activists made a calculated decision in the 1950s to cut ties with this movement and to purge this history from the story of the fight for LGBTQ rights. While that strategy might have been politically advantageous for some, reclaiming radical queer history is essential to understanding the full scope of LGBTQ lives and politics in the 20th century.

In 1932, leftist journalist John Pittman published “Prejudice Against Homosexuals” in his radical Black newspaper, the Spokesman. “What Negroes and homosexuals both desire,” Pittman wrote, “is to be regarded as human beings with the rights and liberties of human beings, including the right to be let alone, to enjoy life in the way most agreeable and pleasant, to live secure from interference and insult.”

Prejudice against gay and lesbian Americans, Pittman argued, was anathema to social justice. As a Black leftist who was committed to revolutionary politics, Pittman well understood how prejudice structured American life, and he was unyielding in his opposition to all its forms.

One reason that leftists — communists, socialists, anarchists and labor organizers especially — concerned themselves with sexual politics was because radicals often found themselves in shared urban spaces with gay men and lesbians, notably local YMCAs and public parks. According to Jim Kepner, a gay leftist journalist, places such as Pershing Square in Los Angeles were available for “public open-air debate, officially designated as a ‘free speech area,’ ostensibly free from police harassment of people whose views they might find offensive, and also popular for gay cruising.”

These spaces reflected how marginalization from mainstream American life made leftists and LGBTQ Americans into strange bedfellows.

Once gay men and lesbians and radicals found one another, new worlds opened up to them. John Malcolm Brinnin and Kimon Friar, both members of the Young Communist League, developed an intimate partnership and observed other Depression-era same-sex couples who were also “consciously trying to mold the course of their relationship in channels that will fit their new sense of responsibility since they have become Marxists.” Betty Millard described her shared passions for radicalism and same-sex intimacy in her diary. “Socialism & sex is what I want all right,” she wrote in 1934. “I just didn’t happen to explain to him which sex.” The line between sexual and revolutionary desire was so often blurred.

LGBTQ people were drawn deeper into the orbit of the left because they, too, were cast as deviant in American society. “I’m a gay fellow, so what do I care about social position?” a gay man wrote in a 1949 letter. “I don’t want to go to any tea parties.” Allying with the radical left was less marginalizing to those who already lived on the margins of American society. In fact, sexuality and communist leanings were both things that kept people closeted.

One such man was Ted Rolfs, a member of the Marine Cooks and Stewards (MCS), a radical labor union that was well-known in the 1940s for its disproportionately Black and gay membership. “On the San Francisco waterfront,” one member reported, “the word was that the Marine Cooks and Stewards union was a third red, a third Black, and a third queer.”

That unique composition shaped the politics of the union. “If you let them red-bait,” Revels Cayton, a prominent Black MCS member cautioned, “they’ll race-bait, and if you let them race-bait, they’ll queen-bait. These are all connected, and that’s why we have to stick together.”

The existential threat posed by the rise of Nazism shifted the focus of American radicals away from revolution to anti-fascism, which meant building alliances with liberals promoting democracy. Edward Dahlberg published a radical novel, “Those Who Perish,” in 1934 — one year after Hitler’s rise — depicting a gay man at the center of the anti-fascist struggle. Willard Motley, a Black radical writer, gave an anti-fascist speech in the 1940s in which he listed gay men and lesbians among other groups whom Americans “love to hate.” Gay men such as Will Aalto and David McKelvy White joined international soldiers in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War.

In 1951, it was out of this populist milieu that a group of former communists built on their experiences opposing fascism to form Mattachine, an organization explicitly advocating for gay rights. In 1954, a writer in ONE Letter, a movement newsletter, described its founders as “young communists with a rage to get out and do something active like picketing and get themselves clobbered and perhaps laid.” In one of its earliest actions, Mattachine teamed up with the Los Angeles chapter of the Civil Rights Congress, an organization with deep connections to the U.S. Communist Party, to protest the entrapment of five Mexican American boys arrested in Echo Park.

Yet this alliance was short-lived. In 1953, Mattachine’s founding members were ejected from the organization over concerns about their histories with the Communist Party, and the organization shifted focus to positioning gay men and lesbians as upstanding citizens. The Cold War’s impact on LGBTQ Americans is often remembered through the lens of the “lavender” scare that purged gay employees from the U.S. State Department. But its influence was no less significant in shaping the fledgling homophile movement, an emergent coterie of new organizations sharing the goal of advancing gay rights through full-throated claims to citizenship.

Anti-gay and anti-communist conservatives invoked historical connections between radicals and gay men and lesbians to discredit both groups. “The Homosexual International began to gnaw at the sinews of the state in the 1930s,” one right-wing journalist correctly, but perniciously, wrote in 1960. These sorts of attacks prompted homophile activists to distance themselves from earlier leftists who had spoken out in defense of gay men and lesbians. “Communism and homosexuality,” the editors of ONE Magazine, a nationally circulated homophile publication, declared in 1960, “are contradictory and inimical.”

By the 1960s, members of Mattachine were fully enlisted as stalwart Cold Warriors, using these anti-communist credentials to push for citizenship rights. While earlier leftists had folded gay men and lesbians into a movement advocating for the end of predatory capitalism, the advance of racial justice and the liberation of the working class, the homophile movement sided with those who saw gay rights as disconnected from broader revolutionary struggles. Full incorporation into mainstream American life became their primary goal.

The post-Stonewall gay liberation movement restored some of the radical energy that animated earlier leftists seeking to align sexual politics with radical social change. There is much in that moment that is worth celebrating. Yet ongoing debates about the radical roots of contemporary queer politics too often overlook connections between LGBTQ rights and the left that appeared in the decades before the 1960s.

That’s because the powerful effects of McCarthyism continue to shape which stories get told and whose lives are remembered. The radical LGBTQ political tradition, both its rise and fall, is a history we can take pride in, but one that might require us to take stock as well.

Complete Article HERE!

As A Queer Person, Relationship Anarchy Helped Me Create The Family I Need

by Kori Nicole Williams

Like so many other people in the LGBTQ+ community, I grew up feeling like I had to be straight. Being straight is treated as the “default,” for lack of a better term, and I had always been attracted to guys as a teen. It was only when I got to college that I realized I could be attracted to other genders—and that realization overflowed into questioning all my other kinds of relationships, including nonromantic ones.

When I started to question and understand my sexuality, it led me to question the other relationships in my life as well, why I prioritized them as I did, and why I felt the need to do so.

I belong to a family, like so many others, where everyone is just assumed to be straight and cisgender and expected to get married and have kids. Nothing else was ever even talked about. So during my time of self-discovery in college, I was too scared to speak to my family about my sexuality because I didn’t want to be judged or shunned by any of them. On top of worrying about what my family would think, I identified as pansexual, and I doubted anyone in my family had even heard that word back then.

But in college, I was meeting people who lived their lives outside the gender binary, who were loving individuals of all genders, and who would accept me for who I was, whatever that looked like. I was building new friendships with people who I, in time, began to see as family. One of them is the first person I ever came out to.

I think it was this experience that caused a shift in my mindset around relationships—and why I began to embrace the concept of relationship anarchy.

Family is more than just what blood runs through our veins.

Relationship anarchy is a term for viewing all relationships as having no rules other than the ones all involved parties agreed to. Although relationship anarchy is often used in the context of ethical nonmonogamy, relationship anarchy can apply across relationships with family members, friends, and others. Essentially, it refers to viewing all relationship types as equal. The importance of a relationship doesn’t have more or less value because of the presence of blood or sex. It relies solely on your bond with that person.

I’m close to my family, sure. I figured I was supposed to be. But at the time I was exploring my sexuality, I didn’t feel like my emotions were safe with them. On the other hand, I had cemented bonds with people with who I had no fear. We were exploring our thoughts and beliefs together, and anything I said was something we could talk about openly. The buds of relationship anarchy were forming.

Think of that old saying, “Blood is thicker than water.” It’s meant to convey the idea that family always comes first. But I choose to live by another saying: The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” This phrase says the exact opposite. Relationships with family aren’t more important just because of a shared bloodline.

For some, relationship anarchy seems like a radical idea. But for me, it’s more logical than anything. It’s used by those who reject societal expectations of how close people are supposed to be to others.

Realizing I’m a member of the LGBTQ+ community inadvertently caused a shift in my thought process. Just like I was learning that I didn’t have to honor the traditional markers for what being “masculine” or “feminine” was supposed to be, I was also learning that I didn’t need to abide by the pre-distributed labels placed on certain types of relationships. Not only did I begin to look at romantic and sexual relationships differently, but I began to understand that my previous view of what’s an important relationship was based on societal expectations: that I should love someone just because we’re related by blood, or that none of my friends who have been there for me for years (and vice versa) could ever come close to the distant relative I only see during the holidays.

For me, the idea of ditching the relationship hierarchies in favor of relationship anarchy was easy enough to adopt, although my family has never been on board. My mom’s always been one to say that friends come and go. At the end of the day, family is all you have, and you have to keep them close, she would say. My grandmother also hammered this idea home, saying that my “little friends” would never be there when I needed them.

But that ended up just not being the case. I have the friends I have today because we’ve shown each other over the years that we’re always here for one another.

And it wasn’t just our shared queerness that brought us together: These are the people I turned to when I was boiling over with self-hatred. My friends understood me because we were dealing with the same kind of negative feelings. We all hated ourselves in some way, and it was easy to sit in that together.

My mom, though, could never understand why I felt the way I did, and it was difficult to find the words to make my thoughts make sense. She would say things like “Happiness is a choice,” but I could never understand why she thought I would choose this.

Looking back, I was definitely depressed, and I don’t believe my mother understood how serious my feelings were. But at that time, speaking to her about any of that seemed almost impossible. Reaching out to her for help felt like blasts of judgment every time. Our conversations left me feeling frustrated and isolated.

I realize now that a lot of the reason I even made it through my high school years is that my friends and I were all depressed together. We were all trying to find small ways to make it through each day and support each other. We talked about how we purposefully looked forward to seeing each other or reading the next chapters in our favorite books.

I was able to see these kinds of adult bonds through rainbow-colored glasses, and questioning that one type of relationship bled into questioning them all.

As I’ve gotten older and more secure in my pansexual identity, I’ve been able to reach out to my family just to talk. I realize now that we don’t have to have deep, soul-searching conversations about my life if I don’t want to. No one is entitled to my story except me. But I will say that taking the small steps to initiate the conversation has allowed me to build new relationships with my family on my own terms while still keeping the close bonds I formed in college as my primary emotional connections.

What I am saying is we can all choose the kind of relationships we have with others. Coming out as a part of the LGBTQ+ community meant that I wasn’t limited to having friendships with other women. I was able to see these kinds of adult bonds through rainbow-colored glasses, and questioning that one type of relationship bled into questioning them all.

Family is more than just what blood runs through our veins. A family can be chosen. You can actively choose to put people in high regard and keep them the closest to you.

I’m not sure when this thought process began or when it ended, but being a relationship anarchist has—just like being a member of the LGBTQ+ community—meant that I’m leaving expectations and generalizations behind in favor of creating a new narrative for myself that’s completely my own. I can shape it how I want, and I refuse to feel bad about removing people from my space who don’t serve my needs and wants.

It’s important to mention that the fact that I can actively choose which relationships are most important to me is a privilege. Other people in the community aren’t that lucky. So many are thrown out of their homes, live in areas that are unsafe for them to be themselves, or have countless other barriers that prevent them from being around others that will accept them. For those people, keeping the bonds you have, sometimes regardless of how fulfilling they are, is all you have. Relationship anarchy alone won’t solve these systemic issues.

But just remember: At the end of the day, you have the power. Not every physical space can be safe, but our chosen relationships can be. Wherever you can, find a community that will accept you and understands you for who you are. You don’t owe your story to anyone, and this should be one aspect of your life where you feel empowered to take control and set the terms.

Complete Article HERE!

Yes, You’re ‘Queer Enough’

— So Call or Label Yourself Whatever Feels Right

by Gabrielle Kassel

This article is for anyone who’s ever asked themselves “Am I queer?” or “Am I queer enough?”

(Spoiler alert: The answer to the first Q = the answer to the second Q).

Here we go!

Typically an umbrella term, “queer” is an identifier that means outside the norm of society, explains Eva Bloom, a queer peer sexuality educator, sex science communicator, and creator of F*ck the Patriarchy, F*ck Yourself, a shame-busting program for non-men.

The so-called norms of society that they’re referring to are cisgender, allosexual, and heterosexual.

“If you’re anywhere outside those identifiers — even a little bit! — you can be queer,” they say.

Sometimes people who are “not straight” or “not cisgender” or “not allosexual” might identify “just” as queer.

And sometimes they may layer “queer” alongside another identity. For example, someone might be a queer bisexual dyke, or a queer trans man, or a queer biromantic asexual.

“Historically, ‘queer’ was used as a slur against the queer community,” says Rae McDaniel, a licensed clinical counselor and gender and sex therapist based in Chicago.

Starting in the 18th century, the word started to get slung at people assumed to be “homosexual” or “engaging in homosexual activity.” Folk who fell outside the acceptable versions of “man” and “woman” also fell victim to the word.

However, in the late 1980s/early 1990s, LGBTQ+ communities began to reclaim the term both as a personal identifier (“I am queer”) and as a field of study (queer theory), says McDaniel.

What fueled this reclamation? Mainly, anger. During the AIDS epidemic, LGBTQ+ communities were (rightfully!) pissed at the lack of response (or compassion!) from doctors, politicians, and unaffected citizens.

Out of spite and in power, LGBTQ+ people began using the word as both an identity and a rallying cry. “We’re here, we’re queer, we will not live in fear,” for example, became a common march chant.

“For some people, especially those alive at a time when queer was used exclusively as a slur, queer is still a dirty word,” says McDaniel.

As such, you should never call someone queer unless that’s a word they would use to refer to themselves.

Due to its history as a slur, many (queer) people see it as having political power.

“For many, identifying as queer is a way of saying ‘I resist cis-hetero patriarchal society that stuffs people into tiny cisgender, heterosexual boxes,’” says McDaniel. For these folks, queerness is about trying to disrupt the people, systems, and institutions that disadvantage minorities.

For them, “queerness is about freedom to be yourself while also working towards others’ freedom as well,” they say.

For the record, you don’t have to be queer to be invested in actively disrupting systems of oppression!

Straight, cisgender, allosexual individuals can and should be doing this activist work, too.

That’s a question only you can answer!

If you answer yes to one or more of the following questions, you may be queer:

  • Does the term “queer” elicit feelings of excitement, euphoria, delight, comfort, or joy?
  • Does it give a sense of belonging or community?
  • Does the fluidity of queerness feel freeing?
  • Does your gender exist outside of society’s understanding of acceptable manhood or womanhood?
  • Is your sexuality something other than straight?
  • Do you experience sexual attraction somewhere on the asexual spectrum?

Remember: “You don’t need to have gone through a physical transition, have a particular kind of gender expression, or even have a queer dating or sexual history in order to claim the label,” says Casey Tanner, a queer licensed clinical counselor, certified sex therapist, and expert for pleasure product company LELO.

“It refers to a sense of self, rather than any behavior or appearance,” adds Tanner.

If you’re queer, you’re queer enough. Full stop.

Unfortunately, many people who want to identify as queer worry that they’re somehow not adequately queer or queer enough to take on the term for themselves. (Tanner says this is known as “queer imposter syndrome.”)

Bloom notes this is an especially common phenomenon among bi+ women and femmes — especially those who have a history of dating men or are currently in a relationship with a nonqueer man.

“Often, the question of ‘Am I queer enough?’ is the result of internalized biphobia and femme-phobia,” she says. Blergh.

While this feeling of inadequacy is common, they say, “You don’t have to worry, sweetie, if you’re queer, you’re queer enough.”

That stands if:

  • You’re in a so-called “straight passing” relationship, aka a relationship others assume to be heterosexual.
  • Nobody knows you’re queer but you.
  • You’re a new member of the LGBTQIA+ community.
  • You’re not physically “clockable” or identifiable as queer.
  • You don’t have any queer friends.
  • You have no sexual or dating history.
  • Your sexual and dating history doesn’t “confirm” your queerness.

PSA: Your current relationship doesn’t dictate whether you’re queer

“People who’re in straight appearing relationships but identify as queer often feel like they aren’t queer or aren’t queer enough because their queer identities aren’t always visible at first glance,” says McDaniel.

But this doesn’t change the fact that they’re queer!

Self-identification — *not* your relationship status (or dating and sexual history) — is what determines whether someone is queer.

No doubt, there’s tremendous privilege that accompanies “passing” as straight (aka not being publicly identifiable as queer).

But, “on the flip side, queer (and bi+) invisibility is associated with increased depression and anxiety and decreased access to affirming healthcare,” says Tanner.

Why? “We all crave being seen and accepted for who we are, and if we aren’t seen, we aren’t accepted,” she says.

Further, not feeling queer enough to enter queer spaces isolates people from the opportunity to make queer friends and join a queer community, says McDaniel.

“And connection to community is an important part of resiliency,” explains McDaniel. “So not feeling able to enter, welcomed by, or seen as queer by the people in your life can have profound impacts on mental health, self-esteem, and self-efficacy.”

The short answer: Connect to the queer community. These avenues can all help.

Read queer books

“Consuming a wide variety of queer stories is an excellent way to normalize queerness for yourself, and even see yourself in the pages,” says Bloom.

Queer memoirs in particular can be powerful for identification. For example:

Watch queer movies and TV shows

“If you’re constantly consuming cisgender and or straight images and media, it becomes easy to forget to affirm the queer part of you,” says McDaniel.

On top of that, it can expedite feelings of inadequacy and otherness.

Listen to queer podcasts

From raunchy to educational, there are queer podcasts for every queer listener’s taste.

Trust, you’ll like all the below!

Follow queer people on Instagram

“Filling your feed with people who are unapologetic in their queerness, can both normalize queerness while validating your own queerness and identity,” says Bloom.

Following people who show off their queer joy, in particular, can be pretty damn invigorating, she says.

Get on TikTok, and maybe even participate

One of the great things about TikTok is how excellent the algorithm is at showing you the content you want to see.

To get on queer TikTok, mass-follow a bunch of the suggested accounts that pop up after following your fave queer comedian, celeb, sex educator, podcaster, or influencer. Then, enjoy falling down the rabbit hole of your now very queer For You feed.

“When you feel comfortable, you might participate in one of the TikTok sound overlays that applies to you,” says Bloom. “This may help other queer people find you, which may lead to friendships or community.”

Attend a queer event online

Thanks to the pandemic, there continue to be all sorts of online queer dance parties, matchmaking games, book readings, and performances, says Bloom.

“For some queer people, these online events feel less intimidating than in-person events because you can leave when you want, keep your camera off, and stay anonymous if you choose,” they say.

If that’s you, she says, “Attend, attend, attend!”

Keep hunting for community until you find one that affirms you

It’s important to remember that the queer community isn’t a monolith.

So, if you attend an event and don’t find queer people who affirm your queerness, keep looking, suggests McDaniel.

“I guarantee there are people out there in the world who will believe and affirm your queerness just because you tell them who you are,” they say. “And when you find them, it can be incredibly affirming and euphoric.”

Identity gatekeeping, which is the act of trying to limit access to who can use an identifier, happens with most gender and sexual identities. And every (!) single (!) time (!) it’s not only disgusting but potentially life endangering.

“Telling queer people that they aren’t queer enough or that they shouldn’t have access to the queer community is no small potatoes,” says Bloom. “It can be detrimental to someone’s mental health.

So, if you’re reading this and you’re being an identity gatekeeper, cut it out.

There are times that queer imposter syndrome and gatekeepers may make you feel otherwise, but if you’re queer, you ARE queer enough.

Queer is queer is queer is queer enough. We promise.

Complete Article HERE!

Experts Define A Comprehensive Gender Identity List

Understand everything from intersex to gender-expansive.

By Perri O. Blumberg

There’s a chance you landed here because you may not totally be clear on all the terms and phrases to express gender identity. “It’s understandable that some folks may feel confused or even uncomfortable with all the variations of gender, gender identities, and gender roles,” says Tracy Marsh, PhD, faculty member for Walden University’s PhD in Clinical Psychology program, and a licensed psychologist in California who specializes in LGBTQIA issues. Or, you could be exploring your own gender identity and looking for the right words to express yourself and help others understand.

Thankfully, it’s 2021, and many of the terms surrounding gender are becoming more widely recognized in our society. “These concepts and terms will continue to evolve. The best way to stay informed is to reach out and have a respectful dialogue with someone who has more knowledge of these terms and topics. Ask others how they identify and how they prefer to be addressed,” Marsh says.

Women’s Health spoke to experts on those questions you may want to ask, but don’t know exactly where to start: What exactly does gender identity mean? What is biological sex vs. gender? And how do gender identity and sexuality relate? First, Jackie Golob, MS, who works at a private practice at the Centre for Sexual Wellness in Minnesota, provides an overview on some commonly confused ideas surrounding gender identity.

  • Genitalia does not equal gender. “The sex characteristics a person is born with do not signify a person’s gender identity. When people have ‘gender reveal parties,’ it really should be called a ‘genital reveal party,’” she offers. The concept of gender really is a social construct, adds Golob.
  • Forget about the two-gender binary. “Gender is a term that relates to how we feel about ourselves, the way we choose to express our gender through makeup, dresses, high heels, athletic shorts, sneakers, and more,” she explains. Our society has convinced us that there are just two options for gender identity, “male” and “female,” based on biological sex. But in reality, there’s more fluidity.
  • Gender identity is on a continuum. It’s not just the male/female gender binary—there’s a spectrum of gender identity. “[Most people] lie in between [the binary], with personality traits that relate to gender identity, expression, and biological sex. Gender identity can change over time, and it is not fixed,” says Golob. Just because you identify one way at one point in time, does not mean you will always choose that identity, or that your identity won’t shift and evolve.
  • Sexuality and gender identity are not the same thing. “Gender identity is how you feel about yourself and the ways you express your gender and biological sex,” says Golob. Meanwhile, sexuality refers to who you are emotionally, physically, romantically, or sexually attracted to, she says. In summary, “gender is how you feel about yourself, while sexuality is how you feel about others,” says Golob.

Now that you have the basics, let’s do a deep dive into gender identity terms and what they each mean.

1. Anatomical sex

In conversations about gender, you may hear this expression used. “Gender identity is about one’s psychological sense of self. Anatomical sex is comprised of things like genitals, chromosomes, hormones, body hair, and more,” says Sophie Mona Pagès, relationship expert and founder of LVRSNFRNDS, a social network that fosters connections and conversations about relationships. “You may be familiar with the terms ‘AFAB’ (Assigned Female At Birth) and ‘AMAB ’(Assigned Male At Birth). This is what they are about.” AFAB and AMAB people may not choose to identify with those terms during childhood, or when they become adolescents or adults.

2. Cisgender

This term describes a person whose gender identity aligns with or matches their assigned sex at birth. “If a doctor assigns gender based on genitalia, when the baby is born and says, ‘It’s a girl,’ and that person aligns with their gender, that’s what it means to be cisgender,” says Golob, noting that this term sometimes gets shortened to “Cis.”

3. Transgender

“Transgender people are folks whose gender identity does not match their sex assigned at birth. They can be trans men, trans women, and also non-binary people, meaning they do not identify as men or women,” says Pagès. She adds one quick note: “Do not say ‘a trans’ or ‘a transgender.’ Say instead, ‘a trans person,’ ‘a transgender person,’ ‘a trans man,’ or ‘a trans woman.’”

4. Cishet

“Cishet refers to people whose gender identity and biological sex are aligned (cisgender), and who are sexually attracted to the opposite sex,” says Marsh. For instance, an individual born with a vagina who identifies as female and is romantically involved with males would be described as Cishet.

5. Non-binary

“Non-binary describes a person who does not identify clearly or exclusively as male or a female, says Alexandra Bausic, M.D., a board-certified OBGYN, and sex educator at Let’s Talk Sex. “They can either feel both gender characteristics or feel different from them.” You may hear non-binary used as an umbrella term for various groups of people that don’t identify as male or female.

6. Intersex

A person born with either some combination of both biological sex characteristics (genital organs, hormones, chromosomes) or certain genital variations that don’t align with either biological sex is intersex, explains Bausic. “It is a natural variation in human anatomy, and it shouldn’t be perceived as something bad,” she says. Also, it’s important to know that being intersex is not that uncommon: Planned Parenthood estimates that one to two people out of every 100 in the U.S. are intersex.

Bausic adds that some examples of modified anatomic features of intersex people include a clitoris that’s larger than the average, a penis that is smaller than the average, or a closed vagina.

7. Genderqueer

“Genderqueer people can identify as neither woman nor man, both woman and man, or a combination of these genders,” says Pagès. Sometimes the words “genderqueer” and “non-binary” are used interchangeably.

“Genderqueer is often an identity that is also a political statement, and sometimes perceived as a third gender,” adds Marsh.

8. Gender-fluid

Just like you can be fluid in your sexual orientation of who you’re attracted to, you can also be flexible with your gender. “Gender-fluid typically refers to someone who prefers to express either or both maleness or femaleness, and that can vary, perhaps from day to day,” says Marsh.

“Some people’s gender identity varies over time,” adds Pagès, who also recommends looking at the Genderbread Person, a helpful resource on understanding gender, as well as guidelines on explaining gender to others. FYI: The fluid (i.e., transformative) aspect of being gender-fluid can happen at any point in life. You can be super young or a supercentenarian—it doesn’t only occur during a particular time in your lifespan.

9. Gender Non-conforming

“Gender non-conformity refers to when someone does not conform to their cultural gender norms,” says Marsh. It could be something as minute as an Assigned Male At Birth (AMAB) person wearing nail polish, Marsh explains. That could be considered gender non-conforming, since nail polish is typically attributed to female-presenting people in our society. Or, on a larger scale, the person might not choose to identify with “he/him” or “she/her” pronouns.

Since all the specifics of these phrases may start to feel similar, Marsh provides some more useful intel: “The terms gender non-conforming, genderqueer, gender-fluid, and non-binary typically fall under the umbrella of transgender, or those persons who do not identify as cisgender,” says Marsh. But they don’t all mean the exact same thing, so it’s still important to check in with people to see what labels they prefer.

10. Gender-Expansive

You may have heard of “gender non-conforming,” but the phrase “gender-expansive” is coming to be the preferred choice in the LGTBQIA+ community. “Gender non-conforming was a term previously used, that still shows up in research and articles today, insinuating something is ‘wrong’ with a person if they are participating in something in society that is ‘non-conforming’ of the norm,” says Golob. Essentially, this term is cis-normative, she points out. “Gender-expansive is the term to use instead that allows folks creativity and freedom to not fit into a societal norm,” Golob says.

11. Agender

“Agender means that one does not identify with any gender,” says Marsh. “They do not feel a sense of male or female,” adds Marsh, noting that like other non-cisgender groups, they may ask to be addressed using the pronouns “they” or “them” rather than “he” or “she.”

Golob elaborates that “Agender can also mean being gender-free, gender-blank, or genderless,” with no connection to any gender in particular.

12. Gendervoid

“Gendervoid is a term that is similar to agender, but specifically refers to not only a lack of gender identity, but also a sense of loss or a void in not feeling that gender identity,” explains Marsh. For gendervoid people, they feel like they don’t experience or aren’t able to feel their gender.

It may be helpful to remember, in short, that “biological sex is physical, while gender is feeling,” as Golob puts it. There’s no pop quiz on these terms, we promise, but becoming familiar with all gender identities is part of being a thoughtful human, no matter where you fall on the gender spectrum.

Complete Article HERE!

The Forgotten History of the World’s First Trans Clinic

The Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin would be a century old if it hadn’t fallen victim to Nazi ideology

Magnus Hirschfeld, right, and his protege and partner Li Shiu Tong, left, at the Fourth Congress of the World League for Sexual Reform, 1932.

By Brandy Schillace

The first gender affirmation surgeries took place in 1920s, at a facility which employed transgender technicians and nurses, and which was headed by a gay Jewish man. The forgotten history of the institute, and its fall to Nazis bent on the euthanasia of homosexuals and transgender people, offers us both hope—and a cautionary tale—in the face of oppressive anti-trans legislation in the United States.

This story begins late one night in Berlin, on the cusp of the 20th century. Magnus Hirschfeld, a young doctor recently finished with his military service, found a German soldier on his doorstep. Distraught and agitated, the young man had come to confess himself an urning, a word used in Germany to refer to homosexual men. It explained the cover of darkness; to speak of such things was dangerous business. The infamous “Paragraph 175” in the German criminal code made homosexuality illegal; a man so accused could be stripped of his ranks and titles and imprisoned.

Hirschfeld understood the soldier’s plight; he was, himself, both homosexual and Jewish. He had toured Europe, watched the unfolding trial against Oscar Wilde, and written an anonymous pamphlet asking why “the married man who seduces the governess” remains free, while homosexual men in loving and consensual relationships—men like Oscar Wilde—were imprisoned. Hirschfeld did his best to comfort the man, but upon leaving his doctor, the soldier shot himself. It was the eve of his wedding, an event he could not face.

The soldier bequeathed his private papers to Hirschfeld, along with a letter: “the thought that you could contribute to [a future] when the German fatherland will think of us in more just terms,” he wrote, “sweetens the hour of death.” Hirschfeld would be forever haunted by this needless loss; the soldier had called himself a “curse,” fit only to die, because the expectations of heterosexual norms, reinforced by marriage and law, made no room for his kind. These heartbreaking stories, Hirschfeld wrote, “bring before us the whole tragedy [in Germany]; what fatherland did they have, and for what freedom were they fighting?” In the aftermath of this lonely death, Hirschfeld left his practice to specialize in sexual health, and began a crusade for justice that would alter the course of queer history.

Hirschfeld called his specialty “sexual intermediaries.” Included beneath this umbrella were what he considered “situational” and “constitutional” homosexuals—a recognition that there is often a spectrum and bisexual practice—as well as what he termed “transvestites.” This group did include those who wished to wear the clothes of the opposite sex, but also those who “from the point of view of their character,” should be considered as the opposite sex.

One soldier with whom Hirschfeld had worked described wearing women’s clothing as the chance “to be a human at least for a moment.” He likewise recognized that these people could be either homosexual or heterosexual, something that is still misunderstood about transgender people today. Perhaps even more surprising was Hirschfeld’s inclusion of those with no fixed gender at all, akin to today’s concept of gender fluid or nonbinary identity (he counted French novelist George Sand among them). Most importantly for Hirschfeld, these men and women were acting “in accordance with their nature,” not against it.

If this seems like extremely forward thinking for the time, it was—possibly more forward thinking than our own. Current anti-trans sentiments center on the idea that transgender is both unnatural and new. In the wake of a U.K. court decision limiting trans rights, an editorial in the Economist argued that other countries should follow suit, and an editorial in the Observer praised the court for resisting a “disturbing trend” of children receiving medical treatments as part of a gender transition. But history bears witness to the plurality of gender and sexuality; Hirschfeld considered Socrates, Michelangelo and Shakespeare to be sexual intermediaries; he considered himself (and his partner Karl Geise) to be the same. Hirschfeld’s own predecessor, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, had claimed in the 19th century that homosexuality was natural sexual variation—and Hirschfeld believed that a person was congenitally born that way.

This was no trend or fad, but a recognition that people may be born with a nature contrary to their assigned gender. And, in cases where the desire to live as the opposite sex was strong, Hirschfeld thought science ought to provide a means of transition. He purchased a Berlin villa in early 1919 and opened the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Research) on July 6. By 1930 it would perform the first modern gender affirmation surgeries in the world.

A PLACE OF SAFETY

A corner building with wings to either side, the institute was an architectural gem that blurred the line between professional and intimate living spaces. A journalist reported it could not “be a hospital,” for it was furnished, plush, and “full of life everywhere.” It’s stated purpose: to be a place of “research, teaching, healing, and refuge” that could “free the individual from physical ailments, psychological afflictions, and social deprivation.” Hirschfeld’s institute would also be a place of education. While in medical school, he’d experienced the trauma of watching as a gay man was paraded naked before the class, to be verbally abused as degenerate.

At his institute, Hirschfeld would instead provide sex education and health clinics, advice on contraception, and research on gender and sexuality, both anthropological and psychological. He worked tirelessly to try and overturn Paragraph 175, managed to get legally accepted “transvestite” identity cards for his patients, and worked to normalize and legitimize homosexual and transitioning individuals. The grounds also included room for offices given over to feminist activists, as well as a printing house for sex reform journals meant to dispel myths about sexuality. “Love,” Hirschfeld said, “is as varied as people are.”

The institute would ultimately house an immense library on sexuality, gathered over many years and including rare books and diagrams and protocols for male-to-female (MTF) surgical transition. In addition to psychiatrists for therapy, he had had hired Ludwig Levy-Lenz, a gynecologist, and surgeon Erwin Gohrbandt. Together, they performed male-to-female surgery called genitalumwandlung—literally, “transformation of genitals.” This occurred in stages: castration, penectomy and vaginoplasty. (The Institute only treated men at this time; female-to-male phalloplasty would not be practiced until 1949 by plastic surgeon Sir Harold Gillies). Importantly, patients would also be prescribed hormone therapy, allowing them to grow natural breasts and softer features.”

Their groundbreaking studies, meticulously documented, drew international attention—and international patients, as well. Rights and recognition did not immediately follow, however. After surgery, some transwomen had difficulty getting work to support themselves, and as a result, five became nurses at the institute itself. In this way, Hirschfeld sought to provide a safe space for those whose altered bodies differed from the gender they were assigned at birth—including, at times, protection from the law.

LIVES WORTH LIVING

That such an institute existed as early as 1919, recognizing the plurality of gender identity and offering support, even through affirming surgery, comes as a surprise to many. It should have been the bedrock on which to build a bolder future. But as the institute celebrated its first decade, the Nazi party was already on the rise. By 1932, it was the largest political party in Germany, holding more parliamentary seats, and growing its numbers through a nationalism that targeted the immigrant, the disabled, the “genetically unfit.” Weakened by economic crisis and without a majority, the Weimer Republic would collapse. Hitler was named chancellor on January 30, 1933 and would enact policies to rid Germany of lebensunwertes Leben; that is, “lives unworthy of living.” What began as a sterilization program ultimately led to the extermination of  millions of Jews, “Gypsies,” Soviet and Polish citizens—and homosexuals and transgender people. The Nazis came for the Institute on May 10, 1933. Hirschfeld was out of the country. Karl Geise fled with what he could carry; everything else would perish by fire.

The carnage would flicker over German newsreels, the first (but by no means last) of the Nazi book burnings. Troops swarmed the building, carrying off a bronze bust of Hirschfeld and all of his precious books. Nazi youth, women, and soldiers took part, the footage and its voiceover declaring the German state had committed “the intellectual garbage of the past” to the flames. Soon, a tower-like bonfire engulfed more than 20,000 books, some of them rare copies that helped to provide a historiography for nonconforming peoples; they could never be replaced.

The Nazis also stole lists of clients, adding the names to “pink lists” from which to poach homosexuals for concentration camps. Levy-Lenz, who like Hirschfeld was Jewish, fled Germany to escape execution—but in a dark twist, his colleague Erwin Gohrbrandt, with whom he had performed so many supportive operations, joined the Luftwaffe and would later contribute to grim experiments in the Dachau concentration camp. Hirschfeld’s likeness would be reproduced on Nazi propaganda as the worst of offenders, both Jewish and homosexual, all that the Nazis would stamp out in their bid to produce the perfect heteronormative Aryan race.

In the immediate aftermath of the Nazi raid, Karl Geise joined Hirschfeld and his protege Li Shiu Tong, a young medical student, in Paris. The three would continue living together as partners and colleagues with hopes of rebuilding the institute, until the growing threat of Nazi occupation once more required them to flee. Hirschfeld died of a sudden stroke in 1935 while still on the run. Giese committed suicide in 1938—and Hirschfeld’s protgege Li Shiu Tong would abandon his hopes of opening an institute in Hong Kong for a life of obscurity abroad. 

Their history had been effectively erased—so effectively, in fact, that though the newsreels still exist, and the pictures of the burning library are often reproduced, few know they feature the world’s first trans clinic. The Nazi ideal had been based upon white, cishet (that is, cisgender and heterosexual) masculinity masquerading as genetic superiority. Any who strayed were considered as depraved, immoral, worthy of death. What began as a project of “protecting” German youth and raising healthy families had been turned, under Hitler, into a mechanism for genocide.

A NOTE FOR THE FUTURE

The story of Hirschfeld’s institute at once inspires hope and pride for an LGBTQ+ history that might have been, and could still be. It simultaneously sounds a warning. Current legislation, and indeed calls even to separate trans children from supportive parents, bear striking resemblance to those terrible campaigns against so-labeled “aberrant” lives. Studies have shown that supportive hormone therapy, accessed at an early age, lowers rates of suicide among trans youth—but there are those who, counter to Hirschfeld, refuse to believe that trans identity is something you can be “born with.” Richard Dawkins was recently stripped of his “humanist of the year” award for comments comparing trans people to Rachel Dolezal, a civil rights activist who posed as a Black woman, as though gender transition was a kind of duplicity. His comments come on the heels of yet more legislation in Florida banning transgender athletes from participating in sports, and an Arkansas bill denying transgender children and teens supportive care.

The future doesn’t always guarantee social progress. Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Research, with its trans-supportive community of care, ought to have provided a firm platform to build a future that indeed thought of “sexual intermediaries” in “more just terms.” But these pioneers and their heroic sacrifices help to provide a sense of hope—and of history—for LGBTQ+ communities worldwide. May we learn the lessons of history, because where we go from here is up to us.

Complete Article HERE!

Here’s a handy glossary of LGBTQ+ terms for allies to commit to memory

Because the words we use matter.

By Ali Pantony

Terminology and naming are essential to marginalised communities, and many have their own language to communicate who they are and the societal struggles they face.

For LGBTQ+ allies, committing these terms to memory is a crucial part of furthering our allyship and learning about the community.

It’s important to note that some terms carry derogatory connotations but have been reclaimed by the LGBTQ+ community over time, and shouldn’t be used about someone unless you’re fully aware that they identify with them. Additionally, because some of these terms are so personal, they carry slightly different meanings for different individuals.

Here’s Stonewall’s guide to LGBTQ+ terms and definitions. It isn’t exhaustive, rather, it’s a good starting point to further our education…

ACE

Ace is an umbrella term used to describe a variation in levels of romantic and/or sexual attraction, including a lack of attraction. Ace people may describe themselves using one or more of a wide variety of terms, including, but not limited to, asexual, aromantic, demis and grey-As.

ALLY

A (typically) straight and/or cis person who supports members of the LGBT community.

BI

Bi is an umbrella term used to describe a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards more than one gender. Bi people may describe themselves using one or more of a wide variety of terms, including, but not limited to, bisexual, pan, queer, and some other non-monosexual and non-monoromantic identities.

BIPHOBIA

The fear or dislike of someone who identifies as bi based on prejudice or negative attitudes, beliefs or views about bi people. Biphobic bullying may be targeted at people who are, or who are perceived to be, bi.

BUTCH

Butch is a term used in LBT culture to describe someone who expresses themselves in a typically masculine way. There are other identities within the scope of butch, such as ‘soft butch’ and ‘stone butch’. You shouldn’t use these terms about someone unless you know they identify with them.

CISGENDER OR CIS

Someone whose gender identity is the same as the sex they were assigned at birth. Non-trans is also used by some people.

COMING OUT

When a person first tells someone/others about their orientation and/or gender identity.

DEADNAMING

Calling someone by their birth name after they have changed their name. This term is often associated with trans people who have changed their name as part of their transition.

FEMME

Femme is a term used in LGBT culture to describe someone who expresses themselves in a typically feminine way.
There are other identities within the scope of femme, such as ‘low femme’, ‘high femme’, and ‘hard femme’. You shouldn’t use these terms about someone unless you know they identify with them.

GAY

Refers to a man who has a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards men. Also a generic term for lesbian and gay sexuality – some women define themselves as gay rather than lesbian. Some non-binary people may also identify with this term.

GENDER

Often expressed in terms of masculinity and femininity, gender is largely culturally determined and is assumed from the sex assigned at birth.

GENDER DYSPHORIA

Used to describe when a person experiences discomfort or distress because there is a mismatch between their sex assigned at birth and their gender identity.
This is also the clinical diagnosis for someone who doesn’t feel comfortable with the sex they were assigned at birth.

GENDER EXPRESSION

How a person chooses to outwardly express their gender, within the context of societal expectations of gender. A person who does not conform to societal expectations of gender may not, however, identify as trans.

GENDER IDENTITY

A person’s innate sense of their own gender, whether male, female or something else (see non-binary below), which may or may not correspond to the sex assigned at birth.

GENDER REASSIGNMENT

Another way of describing a person’s transition. To undergo gender reassignment usually means to undergo some sort of medical intervention, but it can also mean changing names, pronouns, dressing differently and living in their self-identified gender.

Gender reassignment is a characteristic that is protected by the Equality Act 2010, and it is further interpreted in the Equality Act 2010 approved code of practice. It is a term of much contention and is one that Stonewall’s Trans Advisory Group feels should be reviewed.

GENDER RECOGNITION CERTIFICATE (GRC)

This enables trans people to be legally recognised in their affirmed gender and to be issued with a new birth certificate. Not all trans people will apply for a GRC and you currently have to be over 18 to apply. You do not need a GRC to change your gender markers at work or to legally change your gender on other documents such as your passport.

GILLICK COMPETENCE

A term used in medical law to decide whether a child (under 16 years of age) is able to consent to their own medical treatment, without the need for parental permission or knowledge.

HETEROSEXUAL / STRAIGHT

Refers to a man who has a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards women or to a woman who has a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards men.

HOMOSEXUAL

This might be considered a more medical term used to describe someone who has a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards someone of the same gender. The term ‘gay’ is now more generally used.

HOMOPHOBIA

The fear or dislike of someone, based on prejudice or negative attitudes, beliefs or views about lesbian, gay or bi people. Homophobic bullying may be targeted at people who are, or who are perceived to be, lesbian, gay or bi.

INTERSEX

A term used to describe a person who may have the biological attributes of both sexes or whose biological attributes do not fit with societal assumptions about what constitutes male or female. Intersex people may identify as male, female or non-binary.

Stonewall works with intersex groups to provide its partners and stakeholders information and evidence about areas of disadvantage experienced by intersex people but does not, after discussions with members of the intersex community, include intersex issues as part of its current remit at this stage.

LESBIAN

Refers to a woman who has a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards women. Some non-binary people may also identify with this term.

LESBOPHOBIA

The fear or dislike of someone because they are or are perceived to be a lesbian.

LGBT

The acronym for lesbian, gay, bi and trans.

NEURODIVERSE

A concept where neurological differences are recognised and respected in the same way as any other human difference.

NON-BINARY

An umbrella term for people whose gender identity doesn’t sit comfortably with ‘man’ or ‘woman’. Non-binary identities are varied and can include people who identify with some aspects of binary identities, while others reject them entirely.

ORIENTATION

Orientation is an umbrella term describing a person’s attraction to other people. This attraction may be sexual (sexual orientation) and/or romantic (romantic orientation). These terms refers to a person’s sense of identity based on their attractions, or lack thereof. Orientations include, but are not limited to, lesbian, gay, bi, ace and straight.

OUTED

When a lesbian, gay, bi or trans person’s sexual orientation or gender identity is disclosed to someone else without their consent.

PERSON WITH A TRANS HISTORY

Someone who identifies as male or female or a man or woman, but was assigned the opposite sex at birth. This is increasingly used by people to acknowledge a trans past.

PAN

Refers to a person whose romantic and/or sexual attraction towards others is not limited by sex or gender.

PASSING

If someone is regarded, at a glance, to be a cisgender man or cisgender woman. Cisgender refers to someone whose gender identity matches the sex they were ‘assigned’ at birth. This might include physical gender cues (hair or clothing) and/or behaviour which is historically or culturally associated with a particular gender.

PRONOUN

Words we use to refer to people’s gender in conversation – for example, ‘he’ or ‘she’. Some people may prefer others to refer to them in gender neutral language and use pronouns such as they/their and ze/zir.

QUEER

Queer is a term used by those wanting to reject specific labels of romantic orientation, sexual orientation and/or gender identity. It can also be a way of rejecting the perceived norms of the LGBT community (racism, sizeism, ableism etc). Although some LGBT people view the word as a slur, it was reclaimed in the late 80s by the queer community who have embraced it.

QUESTIONING

The process of exploring your own sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION

A person’s romantic attraction to other people, or lack thereof. Along with sexual orientation, this forms a person’s orientation identity.

Stonewall uses the term ‘orientation’ as an umbrella term covering sexual and romantic orientations.

SEX

Assigned to a person on the basis of primary sex characteristics (genitalia) and reproductive functions. Sometimes the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are interchanged to mean ‘male’ or ‘female’

SEXUAL ORIENTATION

A person’s sexual attraction to other people, or lack thereof. Along with romantic orientation, this forms a person’s orientation identity.

Stonewall uses the term ‘orientation’ as an umbrella term covering sexual and romantic orientations.

TRANS

An umbrella term to describe people whose gender is not the same as, or does not sit comfortably with, the sex they were assigned at birth. Trans people may describe themselves using one or more of a wide variety of terms, including (but not limited to) transgender, transsexual, gender-queer (GQ), gender-fluid, non-binary, gender-variant, crossdresser, genderless, agender, nongender, third gender, bi-gender, trans man, trans woman,trans masculine, trans feminine and neutrois.

TRANSGENDER MAN

A term used to describe someone who is assigned female at birth but identifies and lives as a man. This may be shortened to trans man, or FTM, an abbreviation for female-to-male.

TRANSGENDER WOMAN

A term used to describe someone who is assigned male at birth but identifies and lives as a woman. This may be shortened to trans woman, or MTF, an abbreviation for male-to-female.

​TRANSITIONING

The steps a trans person may take to live in the gender with which they identify. Each person’s transition will involve different things. For some this involves medical intervention, such as hormone therapy and surgeries, but not all trans people want or are able to have this.

Transitioning also might involve things such as telling friends and family, dressing differently and changing official documents.

TRANSPHOBIA

The fear or dislike of someone based on the fact they are trans, including denying their gender identity or refusing to accept it. Transphobia may be targeted at people who are, or who are perceived to be, trans.

TRANSSEXUAL

This was used in the past as a more medical term (similarly to homosexual) to refer to someone whose gender is not the same as, or does not sit comfortably with, the sex they were assigned at birth. This term is still used by some although many people prefer the term trans or transgender.

UNDETECTABLE

HIV medication (antiretroviral treatment, or ART) works by reducing the amount of the virus in the blood to undetectable levels. This means the levels of HIV are so low that the virus cannot be passed on. This is called having an undetectable viral load or being undetectable. For more information, visit the Terrence Higgins Trust.

Complete Article HERE!

Trans people deserve healthy, happy sex lives – and that starts with better health care

By Rory Finn

Understanding my body in a sexual way has been something that’s taken time.

I am a transgender man who identifies as queer, and since I began my transition more than 12 years ago, I found I didn’t fit into the boxes outlined in mainstream sexual health information – if I was able to find that sort of information at all.

Anything targeted towards the kind of sex I was having didn’t include people with bodies and identities like mine, and I ended up having to look at sexual health articles published in women’s magazines to try and filter out what information would be useful for me and what was not.

This has been especially unhelpful being who I am now: a man who has sex with men.

I never really noticed just how much of an issue this was until a few years ago, when I started exploring my sexuality and the fetish community. I started to take increased risks with my sexual health, so was going to clinics more often and realised the lack of knowledge and information some clinicians have about trans people and our bodies.

I had a persistent fear that clinicians would regard me as ‘too difficult’ and I feared the inappropriate questions some asked me – others didn’t ask enough. The experience felt unsafe and eventually deterred me from going, hoping I could find any answers I needed through Google instead.

In fact, the first time I contracted an STI I was in denial; I didn’t even know what an STI symptom would look like on a body like mine and I hoped it would clear up by itself. When I was prescribed medication, I didn’t take it straight away.

The continued lack of knowledge and resources around transgender sexual health made me feel like I didn’t matter, that my body was an oddity and that I didn’t deserve good health – all on top of the stigma of having an STI.

And according to a survey by sexual health charity Terrence Higgins Trust, more than half (52%) of trans, non-binary and gender diverse people who responded said they didn’t feel fully in control of their sex life, with more than 70% saying that feelings of negativity and low mood or depression was a factor in this.

Once while I was travelling in Spain, I caught an infection that I believed to be an STI. I spent most of my time at the clinic explaining that I was a trans man, rather than discussing my medical concerns. I was eventually given some sort of prescription and sent on my way.

Trans people should not have to rely on Google searches and outdated sexual health resources – we should be afforded the same information and representation that cisgender people have

This was distressing; I was alone in a foreign country and I didn’t know what was wrong with me. But I was grateful not to have had to undergo an intimate examination.

Luckily, back in England I was able to go to a clinic specifically for trans people – Clinic T – and find out what medication the doctor gave me and why, which was really reassuring.

I knew about the clinic as I had been living in Brighton, where it is well known within the trans community as they do a lot of outreach at events like Trans Pride. But being in an LGBTQ+ friendly city with trans-inclusive services put me at an advantage. Unfortunately, it isn’t always like that, and I’ve still been in situations with a clinician not as trans aware as they could be.

I’m used to being the ‘expert patient’ who knows more about my healthcare than the person who’s supposed to be caring for me.

Then you have the professionals who, the minute they hear the word ‘trans’, automatically view you as a curiosity. Sometimes you are viewed as ‘high risk’ merely because your identity has changed on paper, rather than your behaviour in the bedroom. I regularly experienced this when I started my transition, and it made me feel more like a number in a database than a human being.

This seems to be an ever-present experience for trans people. It’s like, if we don’t fit into society’s strict gender categories, then we fall through the gaps and it makes accessing healthcare feel impossible.

Frustratingly, it could all easily be avoided if healthcare professionals actively built up their knowledge on trans bodies. Trans-awareness training would be helpful, or peer-to-peer learning and reading up on trans health from the ever-increasing body of research on trans medical issues.

Navigating the world as a trans person can be extremely challenging, but it’s even more difficult without valid sexual health information. It can make us feel like we don’t deserve to be seen or celebrated as authentic sexual beings. This is reinforced by the poor representation, such as overly sexualised porn or predatory tropes.

Trans people should not have to rely on Google searches and outdated sexual health resources – we should be afforded the same information and representation that cisgender people have.

This is why I decided to feature in and co-write the Terrence Higgins Trust trans-specific sexual health resource. It is led by and celebrates us as trans, non-binary and gender diverse people.

The new webpages and leaflet are directed to our specific needs and provide up-to-date information and advice on everything from HIV to contraception. They include the impact of hormones and surgery, considerations when taking HIV-prevention pill PrEP, and how to navigate happy, healthy sex.

It feels empowering to be able to do something proactive about something I care so deeply about. I want trans people to have good sex, good health and a healthcare system with as few barriers as possible.

All trans and non-binary people’s bodies should be celebrated, just like everyone else. We have sex too, and we’re deserving of enjoyable and healthy sex lives.

Complete Article HERE!

What Is Heteronormativity?

By

Heteronormativity, predicated on the gender binary, is the belief that being heterosexual (which is attraction only to a different gender) is the only normal and natural sexual orientation. Since it is based on the conception that there are only two genders, heteronormativity does not accurately reflect the reality that gender exists on a spectrum and that attraction to only similar genders or to all genders exists and are normal.

Having heteronormative assumptions may lead people to misgender someone (referring to someone with the wrong pronouns).

Definition of Heteronormativity

Assuming Everyone Is Straight 

By assuming that someone is straight, you’re erasing their sexual identity. Saying that someone is going through a phase, especially for people who identify as bisexual or pansexual, can be harmful and demeaning because it erases such identities, contributing to a lack of civil rights protections and funding aimed to support such communities. One example of erasure is the Trump administration’s refusal to add questions about gender and sexual orientation in the 2020 Census, which determines allocation of federal funding. This shows how excluding people and denying they exist has material ramifications.

Being bisexual or pansexual means someone is attracted to all genders. Erasing people who identify with these orientations is harmful and hurtful.

According to a new survey, only 48% of Gen Z youths identify as straight, while 65% of millennials identified as straight.

Within heteronormativity are the prejudices of transphobia and homophobia. Transphobia refers to discrimination against transgender people, and homophobia is discrimination against people attracted to people with similar genders. By assuming that only being straight and cisgender (someone who aligns with the gender associated with their assigned sex at birth) is normal and that everyone identifies that way, heteronormativity reinforces transphobia and homophobia.

Assuming Someone’s Gender

Heteronormativity assumes that the gender associated with a person’s assigned sex at birth is how that person identifies. Think of gender reveal parties. Society decides what gender you are—what color your clothes, bedroom, and toys will be—before you’re even born. Not everyone identifies as the gender associated with their assigned sex at birth, however.

When a child is born, they are expected to perform heteronormativity. For example, playing with a truck or playing with a doll depending on your assigned gender may be enforced by your parents and how they view your gender. Skewing away from those norms may be worrisome for parents who adhere to heteronormativity. They may struggle with the idea of their son wanting to play dress-up in clothes associated with girls, or may be upset if their little girl wants a short haircut.

A 2020 study looked at 25,000 LGBTQ people between 13 and 25 years old in the United States, and found that transgender and nonbinary youths were incredibly at risk of depression and suicide. It’s imperative to nurture a child, no matter what their identity may be and how far it strays from heteronormative beliefs.

Assuming Sex Is One Way

Penis in vagina intersource—or PIV—is believed to be the only way to have a sexual intercourse for people who adhere to heteronormativity. This is, of course, false. People can have sex without a penis at all. Sex with one or more people with penises also does not have to involve any penetration. Also, cisgender gay men sometimes have penetrative anal sex. Having “normal” sex is seen as PIV sex, while all other forms of sex is considered “different” or “abnormal” in a heteronormative society.

Monogamy

Non-monogamous relationships are seen as existing outside of heteronormative relationships. Heteronormative people tend to believe in the security of monogamy (when a person is in a romantic or sexual relationship with only one person) and their idea that these types of relationships have more trust and communication. It’s not wrong to be monogamous, but it is harmful to believe monogamy is superior to non-monogamous practices.

Non-monogamy

Non-monogamy is an umbrella term for lifestyle choices that exist outside of the traditional monogamy framework. This may include polyamory, where people have several romantic partners, and an open relationship where people in a relationship are sexually involved with more than one person.

Reproduction is key for people who subscribe to heteronormativity and believe that marriage or long-term relationships should result in having a child. Their idea of a nuclear family includes children and a cisgender, heterosexual mother and father. People who aren’t married and aren’t having kids (and could be non-monogamous) are seen as “abnormal” by people who adhere to heteronormativity.

How to Combat Heteronormativity 

We can all take steps to combat the wrong beliefs of heteronormativity:

  • Work on being inclusive. Don’t assume someone’s gender or sexual orientation. Introduce yourself with your pronouns when meeting people to invite them to do so as well, and use gender neutral language to referring to people’s partners before you know about them
  • Be supportive of friends or family who are part of the LGBTQ community. Read up on resources and articles to educate yourself
  • Create a safe space for your friend or family. Make sure they feel like they are in an environment where they can be their authentic self

Complete Article HERE!

Sex vs. Gender

Sex is about biology, gender is about identity

By

Sex and gender are two different things. Sex is about a person’s biology. It describes their chromosomal make up, their hormones, and/or their anatomy. Gender, in contrast, describes a person’s understanding of themselves as male, female, or another gender entirely.

There is a misconception that there are only two sexes—male and female. The truth is more complicated. While most people’s biology fits into those categories, other people’s bodies exist on a spectrum between them.

Individuals whose bodies can not be definitively categorized as male or female may be described as being intersex, having intersex traits, or having differences or disorders of sexual differentiation.

In addition to sexual diversity, there is a growing awareness of gender diversity among humans. This reflects the increasing visibility of transgender individuals—those whose gender identity is not what would be expected for their assigned sex at birth.

Transgender individuals may have both binary and non-binary genders, and gender, like sex, exists on a spectrum. Intersex people may also identify as transgender or gender diverse.

Understanding Sex

The biology of sex starts with a discussion of chromosomes. There are two types of sex chromosomes—X and Y. Most people have two sex chromosomes, and those with two X chromosomes are usually female and those with an X and a Y are usually male.

However, some people have one sex chromosome or three sex chromosomes. They may be categorized as intersex or as endosex (binary male or female). In addition, some people have two chromosomes but some of the genes on one of the chromosomes may not function correctly. That can lead to someone being, for example, an XY woman.

The next major aspect of biology that determines a person’s sex is their hormones and hormone receptors. Exposure to androgens, such as testosterone, leads to the development of structures associated with male sex.

Lack of exposure to androgens, or ineffective exposure to androgens, leads to the development of structures associated with female sex. Ineffective exposure to androgens occurs when there is a problem with the proteins (androgen receptors) that respond to stimulation by those hormones. Lack of exposure to androgens occurs when the body does not make testosterone or DHT.

Finally, it’s important to note that the sex recorded on a person’s birth certificate isn’t about their chromosomes or their hormones, it’s about their anatomy. While most of the time individual’s anatomy is a reflection of their chromosomal make-up, that’s not always true. Sex is more complicated than just X and Y.

Understanding Gender

Gender describes a person’s understanding of themselves as male, female, or another gender. Most people’s genders are what would be expected for their recorded sex at birth, and people for who this is true are described as cisgender. Individuals whose gender is not what would be expected for their recorded sex at birth can be described as transgender or gender diverse.

As with sex, gender has a number of components. Most of the time when talking about someone’s gender, we are talking about their gender identity, which is described above. However, in addition to gender identity, people also have gender expression.

Gender expression describes the gendered ways people present themselves to the word. This may or may not be a reflection of their gender identity. For example, a cisgender woman with short hair who likes to wear tailored suits is still a woman. A transgender man with long hair is still a man.< Gender expression is highly culturally constructed. What is understood to be a male or female presentation depends a great deal on the place and time. There was a time when pink was thought to be too strong and masculine a color for women to wear.

Sex vs. Gender

To sum up, sex is about biology, but gender is about identity. Where sex and gender match, there is generally no need to intervene. Where there is a mismatch between sex and gender, individuals may choose to seek out care.

Healthcare When Sex Differs from Gender

Some individuals whose sex and gender do not match choose to seek out gender affirming medical treatment or surgical procedures in order to affirm their gender. The goal of gender affirming care is to relieve gender dysphoria, discomfort with a mismatch between a person’s body and their identity.

However, some people conceptualize gender affirming care as being a way to achieve gender euphoria—a sense of happiness and fulfillment in their gendered body.

Intersex Care: Consent and Controversy

Historically, doctors and parents have performed early surgeries on infants and young children with intersex traits in order to “normalize” the appearance of their genitalia.

This was often not discussed with children, even as they aged, and many intersex individuals were treated without being given any knowledge of their condition or allowed to make informed decisions about consent.

It was thought that making the child’s genitals appear to be clearly male or female would make it easier for them to live as healthy, happy young men or women. However, the foundational work that established this pattern of care later turned out to have been deeply problematic

The John/Joan Case

In the 1960s, a psychologist at Johns Hopkins University, John Money, encouraged the parents of a young boy to raise him as a girl after the child experienced devastating damage to his penis during a failed circumcision.

Surgery was performed to give the child female appearing genitalia, and he was given female hormones during puberty. The child never was told that he had been born male.

The early results from his case were used to justify hundreds or thousands of unnecessary surgeries on other children with intersex conditions or other genital differences. John Money said his case demonstrated hat it was only the way of rearing that affected a person’s gender identity, and medical practice changed accordingly.

Unfortunately, John Money was wrong. In his teen years, the child rejected the female identity he had been assigned. He eventually learned that he had been born male and started undergoing medical and surgical care to help his body reflect his gender identity and the sex he had been born in.

Sadly, he suffered from depression for much of his life and committed suicide in his 30s. Even more sadly, it took years longer before the medical establishment began to consider that genital surgeries on children might not be in their best interests.

There is a growing recognition that performing genital surgeries on intersex children is a violation of their human rights that can have devastating effects on their medical, physical, and sexual health throughout their lives.1.

In the United States, prestigious children’s hospitals such as Bostons Children’s Hospital and Lurie Children’s Hospital that have historically performed these surgeries have begun to stop offering some or all non-medically necessary procedures until patients can participate in their own care.

This represents an enormous step forward in respecting the right of children to have full, happy lives that include the possibility of healthy sexual function as adults.

However, some researchers, physicians, and parents still argue that having genitals that appear to be binary is more important to children’s lives and well-being than giving them the opportunity to make decisions about their course of care.

Complete Article HERE!

10 sexual health tips for trans and non-binary people

By Ellis K

Everyone has a right to healthy, happy sex. But trans, non-binary and gender diverse people are too often left out of mainstream information relating to health and wellbeing. This means trans and non-binary people are often reliant on guesswork and reading between the lines to find what’s relevant and what’s not.

This came through loud and clear when sexual health charity Terrence Higgins Trust asked more than 200 trans and non-binary people about their sexual health and current provision.

“As trans people, we need to see ourselves in sexual health campaigns and know that the information is written with us in mind,” says sexual health clinician Dr Kate Nambiar.

That’s exactly what the charity put into action – utilising the feedback for the development of its brand new trans and non-binary sexual health information in terms of everything from content to tone.

The information was produced by trans and non-binary staff at Terrence Higgins Trust and developed in conjunction with members of the trans community. Dr Nambiar was the project’s peer reviewer.

The new webpages and print leaflet feature eight trans and non-binary people of different ethnicities, shapes and sizes. In line with feedback, the imagery is empowering and positive – a departure from how trans people are too often depicted.

“I decided to be a part of this resource because I want trans people, however they identify, to know that they are worthy of having an enjoyable and healthy sex life,” says Rory Finn, health promotion specialist at Terrence Higgins Trust who was part of the project group. “Our bodies deserve to be empowered and celebrated, just like everyone else.”

The specialist sexual health information for trans and non-binary people is now available on Terrence Higgins Trust’s website. But – for a flavour – here is the charity’s top 10 sexual health tips for trans and non-binary people.

1) Spend some quality time with yourself

There is no one way to be trans or non-binary, everyone’s different. Masturbation is a good way to get to know what you like and feels good – when you know, you can show your partners what you want. This is true for everyone, but especially so if you’ve just had gender-affirming surgeries and are looking to explore your new body parts. There are a variety of toys on the market that can help with sex. Try different things out. What works for others may not work for you.

2) Checking in

Figured out what you like? Tell your partners. Communication before and during sex can sometimes be awkward and take some practice, but it’s the best way to ensure you are both happy and comfortable with what’s happening. You have the right to enjoy sex and you shouldn’t feel like you have to use parts of your body if you don’t want to. Checking in before sex is also a great time to decide on what barriers and protections you are going to use.

3) Do things your way

Clothing can be affirming, and keeping it on can sometimes mean better sex. Some trans masculine people find that continuing to use clothing like binders and packers during sex feels good. Learning to negotiate the sex that you want, and experience pleasure with potentially new body parts can take time. You might need time to build up confidence and learn new skills to help you negotiate safer sex. You should never be pushed into anything that you are uncomfortable with.

4) Find the best barrier methods for you

STIs can be passed on from all types of sex with all types of body parts and sex toys. Using a barrier such as a condom or dam along with water-based lube is the best way to protect against STIs. Recent lower surgery means unhealed skin, which can make it easier for you to acquire or pass on HIV as bleeding can provide a route into or out of your body. Discuss with your surgeon what kind of activity you can do and how soon. If you’re a trans masculine and on testosterone (T), remember that it’s not an effective form of contraception, but condoms are. The coil, implant, injection or pill can also be safely taken with T. Likewise, hormone therapy for trans feminine people doesn’t provide adequate contraceptive protection.

5) Negotiating condoms

It’s not always easy to discuss condoms before sex, but there are some useful tips to help get them in play. Make sure you have condoms and lube with you and that you’ve practised using them before you have sex. You can make putting on a condom part of play. Passing a condom to a partner can be understood to mean you want to be fucked – it also signals that you want to use a condom for this.

6) Is PrEP right for you

PrEP is a pill that protects you from HIV, taken before and after sex. It doesn’t affect or interact with hormone treatment. PrEP might be right for you if you’re HIV negative and have sex in a variety of situations where condoms are not easily or always used. It gives you empowerment, particularly if you are a receptive partner, or bottom, by taking control over protecting yourself from HIV transmission. There’s also PEP, a treatment that can stop an HIV infection after the virus has entered a person’s body (for example, if you’ve had sex and the condom fails). To work, PEP must be taken within 72 hours (three days), and ideally should be taken within 24 hours. You can get PrEP for free on the NHS from a sexual health clinic, and PEP from a clinic or A&E.

7) Tell a mate you’re hooking up

If you’re planning on meeting someone from a dating app, it’s a good idea to tell a friend where you’re going, when they can expect you to come back and who you’re planning to meet.

8) Be prepared

Just planning on meeting someone for a coffee or quick drink? Plans can change, so make sure you’ve got some condoms and lube with you.

9) Test, test, test

Getting screened regularly is a way to reduce the risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Have a sexual health screen at least once every year, and more frequently if you change partners or have casual or new partners. STI screening is quick, free, and painless and you can take your own samples from the body parts you use for sex. These days, there are more ways than ever, including ordering a self-test kit online.

10) Regular check-ups

If you have a cervix then it’s important to get a cervical screening test every three years from the age of 25 (or every five years from 50 to 64). If you’ve changed your name and gender with your GP, you may not receive letters to remind you to go for a screen.

Complete Article HERE!

Cisgender vs. Straight

— It’s Not Always One and the Same

by Alysse Dalessandro Santiago

If you aren’t familiar with the many terms used to describe members of LGBTQIA+ communities, they may seem like a big ol’ bowl of alphabet soup. But there’s a good reason for all those terms: People are unique, and varying gender identities and sexual orientations can make it hard to fit into a two-gender box.

But what about other terms, like “cisgender,” that often (but not always) exist outside the LGBTQIA+ community? Are you automatically straight if you’re cisgender?

Let us explain cisgender vs. straight.

A cisgender, or “cis,” person identifies as the gender they were assigned at birth. So a cisgender person’s sex on their original birth certificate matches their current gender identity.

You might also see terms like “assigned male at birth” (AMAB) or “assigned female at birth” (AFAB) used to describe someone’s birth gender.

If a person’s gender identity doesn’t match the gender they were assigned at birth, they may identify as transgender or nonbinary.

Are you always male or female at birth?

In the United States, there’s a legal movement for a more inclusive approach to gender. Currently, 13 states allow you to change your birth certificate to say “male,” “female,” or the gender-neutral option “X.”

Identifying as straight is pretty, er, straightforward. Having a sexual orientation of straight means that someone’s attraction, either sexual or romantic, is to a gender other than their own.

This definition is deeply ingrained in societal norms. A straight relationship is typically between a person who identifies as a man and a person who identifies as a woman.

Cisgender” is a gender identity. Gender identity describes how a person identifies themself, such as man, woman, nonbinary, or another identity they prefer. So if someone who was assigned male at birth identifies as a man, he’d be a cisgender male.

“Straight” is a sexual orientation, which describes one’s attraction to other people. Someone is straight if they identify as one gender and are attracted to the “opposite” gender.

A straight relationship is typically seen as involving a cisgender male and a cisgender female. But people whose gender differs from the one they were assigned at birth can still be straight if they’re attracted to a different gender.

When Murray in “Clueless” refers to Dionne as “woman,” that’s her gender. But calling her “female,” well, that would be her sex. What’s the difference? It’s not a simple answer.

Gender is typically influenced by society, not biology, and is responsible for the association of certain traits, language, behavior, and characteristics with being a man or a woman. But gender can be more complex and nuanced than the binary terms.

A person’s gender is often conflated with their sex. Sex is traditionally designated by doctors based on a person’s genitalia at birth. But gender identity is a more expansive view that goes beyond your sex. For example, a trans man could have female genitalia but identify as a man, not a woman.

Bottom line: Your sex (based on genitalia) doesn’t have to “match” your gender (how you identify). Your gender identity isn’t stuck in the construct of your sex.

What about intersex?

The term “intersex” refers to someone’s biological sex not fitting into the binary of male or female. But this term doesn’t dictate gender.

When a person is born intersex, their genitalia, sex organs, hormones, or chromosomes have both female- and male-identifying characteristics. This means an intersex person can have both a uterus and testicles, but they could identify as a man, a woman, nonbinary, etc.

This is also known as a person having a difference in sex development (DSD). It occurs naturally, although some characteristics don’t develop until later in life. Research suggests that about 1 in 100 people are born with DSDs.

As with most things related to gender, it’s not as simple as a person being either cisgender or transgender.

To be either cisgender or transgender still relies on the gender binary of male or female as the framework. Have a penis and identify as a man? Cisgender. Assigned male at birth but identify as a woman? Transgender.

Other gender identities or expressions that don’t always fit into the category of cisgender or transgender include:

  • Nonbinary. Some folks don’t identify as either a man or a woman, while others identify as both. “Nonbinary” is often used as an umbrella term for people whose gender identities exist outside the binary of man and woman.
  • Gender-fluid. A person can also identify as gender-fluid, which means their gender identity is not fixed — instead, they move between identities. One moment “man” fits, and another “woman” feels best.
  • Gender nonconforming. This means someone’s gender expression doesn’t match the gender they were assigned at birth. But people who identify as gender nonconforming may also identify as cisgender.

These are just a few examples. There are more than 64 terms that can describe a person’s gender identity or expression.

The deal with gender identify

Gender identity is up to each individual to decide. And someone’s gender identity may not match their gender expression. For example, someone may identify as a woman, but their appearance may be masculine.

Complete Article HERE!

Dating All Genders for the First Time?

Here’s Where To Start.

Explore dating new people with care and compassion front of mind.

by Taylor Hartman

Sara Saito was nervous. Her palms were sweating as she sat at a crowded bar, waiting for her date.

Saito had been in the U.S. for a semester studying business abroad at the University of Utah, and she was about to go on her first real date since starting school.

The date itself wasn’t what was giving Saito nerves — after all, she’d dated people in high school and had a boyfriend for a year.

She was nervous because after struggling with her sexual identity for years, this was the first time she was going on a date with a woman.

“I’d always been attracted to women but I was too scared of the unknown,” Saito said. “I’m a pretty shy person, so doing something social that’s new is scary for me.”

As a single person in a new city, Saito said she was finally ready to better understand herself and explore dating a wider variety of people. When she first found out she wanted to start date women, Saito felt lost, unsure of where to look or how to begin.

“I can download Tinder and change the gender to women, but for me, I was still nervous,” Saito said.

“What if I say the wrong thing or break a ‘rule?’ What if I find out I am less attracted to girls [than I thought]? Those were real concerns for me because I was so new to everything, it all was overwhelming and scary.”

Ready to date different genders? Self knowledge is key

Like Saito, many young people feel more comfortable with exploring their sexuality these days, but navigating a new social landscape can be a scary prospect.

For mental health experts like Sorin Thomas, exploring and understanding one’s gender is a beautiful part of life. But it should be done with care and other people’s well-being in mind, and always remembering hearts are at stake.

Thomas is the founding and executive director of QUEER ASTERISK, a Colorado-based nonprofit organization providing queer-informed counseling services, educational training and community programming.

“When we explore dating different genders the danger is people can get tokenized,” Thomas says,

“And then that could become further harmful when the person doesn’t have a good framework for how to validate another person’s gender, body, sexual identity and more.”

Thomas points out if a person isn’t sure what gender they’re attracted to, it may not be the best time to experiment with other people.

“It comes from that person unlocking things in themselves first,” Thomas said.

Get rid of misconceptions in you and others

One of the most common misunderstandings Thomas sees in counseling queer individuals and their families is that biological sex, gender and sexual orientation are all the same part of a person’s identity. In reality, the notions of gender, sex and attraction are much more nuanced, and often act independently of each other.

For example, Thomas said many people assume a transgender man would identify as heterosexual.

“The parent who’s saying something in their head like, ‘Gosh, I can’t imagine my child as a trans boy, they’ve always been attracted to boys,'” Thomas said.

“We try to help people understand that these things aren’t determined by each other.”

Thomas says the first step in dating new genders is to do some self-searching, and find out how you may identify, and how your biology, gender, and sexuality relate. When we understand how we’re oriented in the world, we can better understand how other people are.

Find inclusive resources and communities

No matter who we date, getting out there and meeting potential partners is a challenge. For folks who are just starting to date all genders, the usual resources for meeting people can be overwhelming.

Jake Arnold came out of the closet in December 2018, his senior year of college.

“I decided to download Grindr because I figure that’s where I’d meet people,” Arnold said.

“I was immediately bombarded with d*** pics and messages of people wanting to hook up. It was overwhelming.”

Arnold took a step back from Grindr and decided to research other dating platforms that were queer-friendly. He joined OkCupid, an app long hailed as an inclusive dating service, and felt less pressured. He eventually met his boyfriend on the site.

Arnold now volunteers with his local pride organization to provide a safe, pressure-free space for queer people — a space he felt he missed.

“I know how scary it is to come out and start looking,” Arnold said. “I want to be there for those people who are scared and say ‘I know what you’ve been through, I know how crazy gay dating can get, here’s what I did.”

Dating services and resources tailored to include queer people are becoming more common, Thomas said. At the end of the day, it’s important to realize that one’s sexual journey is just that — a journey.

Most of the time, we never arrive exactly where we thought we would, and the journey itself is something to celebrate.

“No one is a polished finished product,” Thomas said. “Trying something is messy. But to be able to do this with as much grace and integrity as possible is really great.”

Complete Article HERE!