forever taking accidental photos when I’m checking my lipstick… but I’m loving my stache in this shot

My best friend, Ella Quincy, is a fucking beautiful gender-fucking femme human who I love with my all my heart <333333

So I’ve been searching with limited success to try to find community support around transition.  That’s not to say there isn’t information about transition out there (there’s lots of it!), but I can only listen to the same story (that I don’t relate to) so many times without feeling frustrated.

I know from individual conversations with other trans* folks that many of us have non-normative experiences of transition (or non-transition), and that many of us feel silenced about discussing those experiences.  For some of us, this silence comes from a fear of being invalidated and criticized by people inside and outside of our communities for being “not trans enough”.  I guess I hope that making this online community space could be a way to break that silence and make space for us to be more honest with ourselves and each other about the endless beautiful possibilities of our relationships to our bodies and the world around us.

I drafted a blurb for the blog:

“Queering Transition” is a community blog that aggregates posts about transitional knowledge and experiences that disrupt or subvert the idea that all trans people share a single transitional narrative.  I want this blog to be a space to open up dialogue about the endless possibilities of transition (or non-transition!) that trans* folks explore every day.

There are so so many different kinds of posts that might be included in this blog! Here are some question prompts to get you thinking, but please know that you can definitely still submit if your experience is not invoked by these questions: 

Is your experience of transition woven into your intersecting identities around race, ability, class, spirituality, size, and more?  Have you started and stopped hormones, used lower-than-typical doses, switched between estrogen and testosterone, etc?  Are you happy not “physically” transitioning? Does the concept or language of transition itself make little sense for you? 

Are you “naturally” transitioning?  Have you chosen a surgical route that you rarely see represented in other folks’ transitional narratives?  Have you used body modifications (e.g. piercings, tattoos) as an element of your transition? 

Did your transition allow you to better explore gendered expressions that aren’t generally associated with your gender identity (e.g. being a butch trans woman or femme trans man)?  Is your transitional experience tied into your identity as non-binary, genderqueer, two-spirit, genderfuck, androgyne, neutrois, agender, stud, femme, butch, queen or other identities that cannot be entirely capture by words like “trans woman” and “trans man”? 

To submit:  You can either click the submit button or, alternatively, tag your blog post with “queeringtransition” to let us know that you might like it reblogged.

I’m wide open to feedback and critique on this.  I also don’t know if something like this already exists?  I haven’t found it but I could be looking in the wrong places.

I’d also love if some folks would volunteer to be moderators.  I’m about to start my semester and I sometimes have to step away from tumblr for long chunks of the semester.  I wouldn’t want to start and then abandon this community space.

I’ve got this idea, but I don’t necessarily have the time or energy to fully take charge of it…    soooo I’m tossing the torch out to tumblr!

Home sick and trying to make myself feel like less of a zombie… by dressing up for the internet obvi!

STORY TIME.  About a year after I first started identifying as trans and asking for “he” pronouns I started having a crisis.  I had been embodying a pretty normative masculinity, mostly because I felt like that was what I had to do to make myself legible to people.  And because I felt like it was my own fault if other people read my gender wrong.

But I am not normatively masculine.  I am a very very feminine man.  I am a queen, I am a drag queen, I am a fem/me, I am genderfluid, I am a gender non-conforming man.  And I now know that it is never my fault when other people assume my gender.

In 2009 I had what I like to call my first ~femme crisis~.  I moved through my every day life presenting in normatively masculine ways.  But inside, my glorious queen soul was getting no sunlight, no love, no water and it was slowly wilting and dying. 

I would only dress up femme-y in private for my boo, and it felt so liberating.  But some days I felt like if I didn’t go out into the world dressed femmey, if I didn’t stop conforming to what other people thought a man was “supposed to look like”, that I was going to absolutely break down.  I would have gender meltdowns all the time and I just felt terrible.  It seemed like this normative masculinity was collapsing on top of me.

I used to tell my boo about this gorgeous red dress in the window of a plus-size boutique off of MacArthur.  I eyed it for weeks and weeks every morning on the bus ride to school.  I desperately wanted it, but I felt like such a failure of a man for all of my secret desperate queeny desires. 

That year on Valentine’s day she handed my a small gift bag.  I had no idea what it could be, but as soon as I slipped my hand between the tissue paper and felt the silky smooth fabric I knew exactly what it was.  I tugged on one of the halter straps and slowly pulled the dress out of the bag.  It unfolded and bloomed like a big red poppy and I just burst into an ocean of tears right there in her tiny little dorm room. 

In that silent exchange between me and my partner I knew that, for the first time in my life, someone really truly understood my gender.  I knew that she would still call me her boyfriend in this dress.  I know that she would never push me, but always support me, in exploring the ways that I need to express my gender in order to feel liberated, to feel safe, to feel honest.  I knew that she really deeply truly loved every fiber of my being. 

And most of all, I knew i was going to be okay.

(that’s me in the dress on the right, and my friend Tabs on the left)

Me and Tabs at Black and White Ball…. where we were both divas and wore red.

I can’t decide whether this photo makes me happy because our contagious laughter or because we look like we’re gonna eat eachother.

being called “girrrrl/girl/gurl/queen/femme/sister” and similar things DOES NOT FEEL OKAY COMING FROM JUST ANYONE.

It feels good coming from folks who really genuinely get my gender, and are using that language to affirm my identity as a queer femme man and to cement my membership into communities of queens. It feels good when I know that “girrrrl!” doesn’t actually mean “you’re a girl!” But, instead, means “you are a fem/me-as-fuck boy queen and I SEE YOU!”

When that language comes from people who are using that language because they assume they are in a group of women and/or that I am a woman, it feels TERRIBLE and misgendering.  And it’s one of the most awkward things to wiggle out of because I have to feel like an asshole when, after you excitedly call me “GIRL!” or “SISTER!” or “GIRLFRIEND!” I have to be like….

uhmmm.  actually…. no. 

At least not in the way you think.

If y’all can signal boost this it would be super amazing!

So my partner and I are roadtripping from Boston, MA to Oakland, CA this December and we need a bit of help finding places to stay!  We need a place to stay in

• FORT SMITH, Arkansas on Dec 29, 2011
• ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico on Dec 30th, 2011
• LAS VEGAS, Nevada on Dec 31st, 2011

We are

• a 21 year old white, genderqueer, femme trans guy who is a student/artist/activist
• a 24 year old queer woman of color who is also an artist/activist

We’re both quiet, clean, and respectful.  We don’t smoke or drink and we won’t have any pets with us. 

Pluses! We would be stoked if

• you are also queer and/or trans* and/or of color (+allies!)
• you have a bed or couch to sleep on and not just a floor (we both have hella bad backs and will have been driving for a looong time)
• you have a sober and/or smoke free household (neither of us drink, and my asthma is triggered by smoke)

If your house doesn’t fit that criteria, but you’re down to house us, feel free to message me anyway!  Those are just pluses, but our first priority is having somewhere to sleep :)

IF YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO HOUSE US (or know someone who might) PLEASE DON’T REPLY IN MY ASK BOX! I’m going to be off tumblr for a bit and I won’t have access to my askbox. 

Instead, you can email me at:  delisubthefemmecub@gmail.com

If you have a tumblr, feel free to link me to that as well!

Thanks for all your help <3

and as I’m getting ready I’m being reminded how being around her makes me suuuuuper anxious about my gender presentation. 

Like, being around strangers makes me super anxious because I don’t know how they’re going to read my body.  But being around her makes me super anxious because she makes me feel like I constantly have to prove that I’m trans.  She’s always looking to poke holes in my identity and to quietly undermine all of my politics. 

I haven’t been binding all week, but since I’m seeing her today I feel a lot of pressure to present as trans.  I don’t expect that she’s going to read me as a cis guy or something, because she knows me.  But I still feel a pressure to bind in order to send her the message that yep! I’m still fucking trans. 

IDK.  We’re going shopping together because she has a car and all I want to do is try on gold-lame mini-dresses but I can’t because she’ll read that as me being confused about my gender.  And I WANT to be able to bond with her about femmeness! I WANT to be paint our nails together and go shopping for knee high boots and whatever…  but I feel like the more I let her into that part of myself, the more she doubts who I am.

tangledupinlace:

Life of a Betty

Stole this picture from my beautiful Tracy’s blog Chubble Bubble of my debut as a Betty for Ninja Betty and the Nunchix 

ecrivaine:

delisubthefemmecub:

why wont you come out for hrc? do you not like hrc?  

-Anonymous

I hate HRC. 

Here are a few reasons why I and other trans folks and allies hate them, not to mention that fact that they’re a homo-normative, nationalist, assimilation organization whose politics I whole-heartedly disagree with. I can’t remember all of the stories I’ve heard and articles I’ve read off the top of my head, but I understand them to also be a perpetually racist and classist institution.

As far as the coming out thing… I don’t support the “coming out” framework that organizations like HRC espouse as being the key to “equality.”

I see the problem as being a culture in which we are expected to “come out” if we are “not normal.” I see the problem as being an environment in which we assume we can read things about race, gender, sexuality, citizenship, ability, class, etc. on each others bodies.  I see the problem as being an environment that frames us as ~tricksters~ if we don’t disclose the entirety of our identities in a fashion that makes other folks comfortable.

But HRC sees the problem as not enough gays and lesbians coming out.  Thus HRC blames “setbacks in equal rights” on the folks who do not want to, or cannot, come out, and folks for whom coming out doesn’t even make sense, etc.  These folks are disproportionally people who are already marginalized from the HRC-style LGB(T) community. 

So on the one hand, “coming out” so to speak has been a big part of my experience.  And I have lots and lots to say about in/visibility and disclosure and about coming out as an ongoing process in my life that never ends.  And I have lots of thoughts about various different frameworks that folks use to think about this culture of disclosure (like queer checkpoints, etc.)

But I have no interest in just “coming out” because an organization like HRC tells me its the right thing to do and that if I don’t I’ll be holding “my community” back. 

So yeah.

(made rebloggable for onspacehardware)

FWIW, I totally understand the whole hating HRC thing. But I still think coming out is a good & important thing. Yeah, the fact that we even have to come out is a symptom of the fucked up society, but I still think visibility is vital.

Yeah, and like I said I do come out all the time… like multiple times a day every day of my life.  Its a really integral part of my experience. 

But that doesn’t mean I want to come out for HRC or in celebration of the assimilationist gay politics that frame this day.

And I’m also not gonna knock folks who choose to use this day, despite the fucking HRC, to engage in brave acts of disclosure that feel empowering to them.

brohamsandwich:

Miscellaneous body love, mostly of the torso variety. Also sparkly sweater love. Outtakes from my gender blog, actual post there later.

dapperanddandy:

Hey everyone! Elisha from 2011s calendar is printing out a new 2012 calendar!!! Which is going to be bigger and full of beautiful queer feminity, including portraits of four fabulous high femmes! ♥

“To help out with printing costs, I’m taking pre-orders. All pre-orders receive two free illustrated greeting cards (+ envelopes).

This ends on October 10th, when the pre-orders will be mailed out. 

Double the size! This year’s wall calendar is a full size 8x11” wall calendar in bright glossy full-colour.

The theme is SISSY and every month brave and beautiful queers talk about sequins, glitter, femininity, insults, courage, happiness and femme pride.

This is about the international queer community, and models from London, Berlin, Montreal and Toronto each express their own identities, which I kept in their own words.

This is also a Universal Calendar, so it doesn’t state weekdays and can be re-used to preserve special events every year.

The 2011 calendar was voted Best Lesbian Gift last year on afterellen.com.
SUPER YAY!

xo

Elisha”

Go and pre-order now!!!

OH MY GOD HELLO BIRTHDAY WISH LIST!

cherryvision:

bahnhofe:

Labels Project, Vol. One

The Labels Project is a collaborative project between myself and Hedda Hammer, a bay area artist and writer, and came after we attended our first pride events in Los Angeles and Long Beach.  Being newly out we noticed quite a few groups and sub groups that we felt were not properly represented in the media, even our own media.  We felt that there was so much about the LGBTQ community that we did not know, and I’m sure others don’t know about.

Though the project has gone through some changes since it’s initial conception, we hope it hope it will continue to grow and evolve as does our community.

Loving this

laborreguita:

femmesandfamily:

I want to follow you!

eh, i don’t really identify very strongly as femme as some people do. i wish there was a term for people in-between butch and femme. i don’t really feel like boi is my word, but maybe with that essence. ps i’m queer queer queer. 

a) QUEER FEMME OVER HERRRREEE

b) @laborreguita I don’t know if this is the kind of word you’re looking for but my boo identifies as a stemme ( a stud-femme)