The Pose star shared their refreshing wisdom at the 40th annual Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, at the world premiere of River Gallo-penned and produced Ponyboi. During the Q&A, Moore—who plays Charlie in Gallo’s intersex-affirming & Jersey-set thriller—complimented cis director Esteban Arango on being incredible due to his emotional intelligence.

Watch what we recorded at the Ponyboi world premiere Q&A and access the transcript below:

Indya Moore At Sundance 2024 Replay Transcript

“Well, I actually was enamored by River before I came on to the project. I actually told River; I shared with them that I had a crush on them.

Yeah, they’re really beautiful, and brilliant, and kind. And I’m strong and honest. And that really helped me to bring Charlie to life.

Also, the director Esteban is so emotionally intelligent and I think that’s a hallmark for an incredible director. As we all know, storytelling is really emotional. And it’s, I think what makes us impacted by storytelling, is empathy. Our abilities to connect with the experiences of these characters and these people that exist outside of us in our lives.

And you have to be someone who understands what it means to feel, and not just what it means to feel generally. You also have to be somebody who understands how something in a moment feels.

And also you have to be somebody who’s open to also actively empathize and receive that moment on set and to understand, OK, this is what this feels like. And this is, this is the story in this moment that we’re telling.

I’m not a director. I aspire to be, but if I were to be one, I would take Esteban’s example, and I’m really grateful.

And also something I was thinking about being here. I mean, I want to center Victoria for a moment because her performance and the story she was telling was so heavy.

And I think it speaks to, because there are so many circumstances that make women and trans people and queer people and intersex people really, really vulnerable to receiving any kind of love and any kind of person when we really need it.

And Victoria [Pedretti] helped so much, and there’s so much trauma and abuse [in the film]. I think, like that it’s really traumatic to enact, to experience, to remember and to also embody. You know, like that’s—it’s also traumatic.

But like also I just want to to say you’re really incredible, you’re so powerful. You’re so brilliant, and you are too [at rest of the cast], and thank you.

And also the love in this space, the love that these people created with each other is so powerful and strong.

I was sitting here and I’m like, wow, I’m like what does one do with all this love? And that’s what my head when I was like, how does one, how does one just experience so much love just in space with someone?

And I was just like, if you hold it, hold it, yeah. And you receive it.

And you let it change you.

And I feel like that’s what happened with everyone here. And I hope that the movie was able to impact everyone else in that way too.”

In Ponyboi, an intersex runaway searches for love and a way out of his working class New Jersey neighborhood. Follow the film on social for updates: @ponyboi_film

Want more? TransLash’s guide to the 40th annual Sundance Film Festival is a living document being updated with trans-affirming films and resources through February 2024.

Did you find this resource helpful? Consider supporting TransLash today with a tax-deductible donation. Did we miss anything? Let us know and we’ll update the guide with your suggestion, crediting you as the contributor.

The post Indya Moore at Sundance 2024: ‘The Hallmark of an Incredible Director is Emotional Intelligence’ appeared first on TransLash Media.

Is Seeking Mavis Beacon part of queer and trans cinema? After thanking me for giving them the opportunity to answer this specific question, this was Jones’ response:

Q&A Transcript

Jazmin Renée Jones: As a Black, queer, non-binary filmmaker, there’s no question that this is a Black film. It’s just, it’s Black cinema. Me being Black, regardless of what the subject of my film is, it’s a Black film. And I think it’s really interesting that queer cinema, it’s a little trickier. And it’s like, I think this [their film] is queer cinema. Olivia and I are gay as hell, but but it’s like absent of a love plot. It’s like we don’t qualify. And I think queer cinema is also just like, hey we’re queers, we’re out here.

Olivia McKayla Ross (associate producer and protagonist): It’s like we’re queering cinema [audience laugher]. Like, well, there’s a divestment I think from like a normative way of understanding the traditional structures that are upholding how what we deem is like a regular way to behave. And we bring as like, investigators, a femme politik to even encounter people’s space. And sometimes even overdoing it with like apologizing a lot, knocking on doors in a kind of way where like, it’s very common with investigative documentaries, you just have someone like waving a camera in your face, and like being very, um, there’s like a sense of like “it is my right because I’m holding a camera” and there’s these like dude, dude bro, like true crime. Yeah.

So I think there’s a way in which, um, like the fact of our queerness embeds in everything that we’re doing. And also the lessons I think, like, that we learn from queer and trans people of history about representation and how it can be a trap [muffled]. Invisibility the entire, yeah having visibility and having a voice…

Jazmin Renée Jones: Another thing, I think, coming back to your question too, we had a really interesting experience, Olivia and I. We went to film at a certain queer archive and the question came up of like why would we let you film here, your movie isn’t queer. And then we were like but no, we are, and then they’re like but your subject isn’t queer, and we’re like you got us there, maybe, I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her about that yet. So I think in general, I just, I’m excited for this to be in conversation with other queer films.

Olivia acknowledged that we spent a lot of time studying the hero’s journey and then the heroin’s journey, which I really love, um, but I also found it to be incredibly clunky in its gendered language, and so, it’s like I had to like translate like the divine feminine. And like okay that means intuition.

And so if anybody here also would like to work on like a gender nonconforming Journey which is basically us figuring out the principles of that without all of this gendered language, I would love that um, so yeah thank you.

Guetty Felin (producer): You’ve done it with Seeking Mavis Beacon.

Jazmin Renée Jones: Thank you.

Family Dynamics In Seeking Mavis Beacon

Call it a “Sundance moment”: I serendipitously sat down with several of Jazmin’s family members at a cafe near the Seeking Mavis Beacon premiere on my way to the press line, before having any idea who they were. I had seen an open chair at a table and politely asked if I could use it, and was immediately invited to take a seat with the family. We easily fell into conversation, and upon learning what I was there for, Jazmin’s mother shared with a big smile that they (Jazmin’s parents, step-parents, and more) were there for the same film too.

As I looked around the table in awe, I told them what a beautiful gift it was for me to witness such a unified front for Jazmin. Even though I didn’t know her and hadn’t seen her film yet, it meant so much to see a fellow queer and non-binary person being supported in big ways by their blood and chosen family on their special day.

I didn’t have to tell them that I and other queer and trans people don’t always get this support. I could tell they already knew.

My brief time sharing space with Jazmin’s family was filled with their father and step-father trading anecdotes about her always having a camera in her hand, the warm tones of their voices full of pride and nostalgia. Jazmin’s mother’s phone then dinged with a notification, followed by her alerting the table that Jazmin had asked that they meet her at the press tent.

Since I knew where it was, I offered to guide them there. “You’re our angel,” Jasmin’s mother said as I led them out the door, and we made our way through the snow to the little white tent where Jazmin was waiting inside.

From a respectful distance, I watched as Jazmin’s family celebrated her getting her flowers, then joining her for photos on the red carpet. As Jazmin’s mother walked over to me, I thanked her again for the shared moment and congratulated the family before I stepped away to find the passholder line for the screening so I could get a good seat.

Queer Family Legacies

Once inside the theatre, I was immediately surprised and delighted to see up on the big screen several of those same family members I had sat with in the cafe. Between scenes of their investigative work, Jazmin wove in the ways that her family held space for them and offered advice along her years-long journey to find the elusive woman behind one of her favorite childhood computer games.

Jazmin also included scenes of herself with vibrant queer and trans chosen family; her own angels supporting her on her quest for truth and resolution. Queerness and transness is embedded so deeply in the film that it seems impossible that anyone could watch this movie and not call it queer cinema.

Seeking Mavis Beacon tenderly holds a story about a Black woman’s fight for control over her own likeness and right to privacy, while Jazmin and Olivia experiment with subverting technology to find her—and the truth about themselves.

While I thought I was going to watch a film about the intersection of race, gender, and technology, what I experienced was a fascinating and complex story about the ways we as queer and trans people—especially Black and brown LGBGTQ+ folks—find representation in media that wasn’t necessarily created for us, cultivating family online and offline in traditional and nontraditional ways.

If we choose it, we can use technologies as tools to help us unlock the truth about who we are, while fostering familial connections along our path to self-actualization and healing.

Will a future e-girl/e-person make a film about seeking Jazmin Renée Jones because they saw so much of themselves in Seeking Mavis Beacon? I’m betting on it happening sooner than you think.

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Is Complicated Black Representation In Tech

One of the most influential Black women in technology is a figment of our collective imagination. The co-founder of Myspace invented Mavis Beacon to sell the world’s most popular typing software, but the real woman she was modeled after disappeared in 1995.

Seeking Mavis Beacon poses critical questions regarding anthropomorphization and the consumption of marginalized bodies in the tech industry, while reimagining the legacy of a missing historical figure.

Launched in the late ’80s, educational software Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing taught millions globally, but the program’s Haitian-born cover model vanished decades ago. In Seeking Mavis Beacon, two DIY investigators search for the unsung cultural icon, while questioning notions of digital security, AI, and Black representation in the digital realm.

TransLash’s guide to the 40th annual Sundance Film Festival will be released during this year’s fest. Subscribe to our newsletter to access our guide: www.translash.org/connect

Did you find this resource helpful? Consider supporting TransLash today with a tax-deductible donation. Did we miss anything? Let us know and we’ll update the guide with your suggestion, crediting you as the contributor.

The post Seeking Mavis Beacon: a Black Queer and Trans Film about Healing Tech and Chosen Family appeared first on TransLash Media.

Stereotypes about Appalachia run rampant, and one of the most pervasive is that the region is uninhabitable for LGBTQ+ people. There’s a push from some rural queer folks for queer people to form communes unto themselves apart from the “backward” people in Appalachia, or escape to a big city—preferably one near the coast. But talk to Stacy Jane Grover (she/her) for five minutes, author of the newly released memoir-in-essays Tar Hollow Trans, and she’ll show you why that’s a reductive and often incorrect way to view the region. 

The Appalachian region itself is as contested as what goes on inside of it. A brief history: The federal government declared a war on poverty in 1965 and formed the Appalachian Regional Commission, an economic development entity that identified 423 counties spanning from southern New York state to northern Alabama and Mississippi as being impoverished and in need of special attention in order to more fully participate in capitalism. 

However, as we know from Indigenous activists, borders are often arbitrary, so cultures, communities, and family connections don’t stop at county lines. In the most technical sense, the rural southeastern Ohio county Grover grew up isn’t in Appalachia according to the federal government, but it’s surrounded by ARC-designated counties on three sides and many of the cultural traditions carry over. 

“I reference the historian Emily Skidmore who wrote True Sex: The Lives of Trans Men at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. These trans men specifically moved away from the city to live in rural areas to live out lives,” Grover said. “Skidmore also talked about just how easy it is to find trans people in small-town newspapers where the newspapers are using correct pronouns.”

Finding True Sex while in grad school for her master’s in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies was validating for Grover. “It was something I always felt growing up, and that book showed me it was real, not just vibes,” she said. 

In Grover’s lived experiences growing up in Carroll, a village in Fairfield County, Ohio––which just hit a population of 500 in the 2020 Census––it’s not being queer or trans that Appalachian people take issue with, it’s disrupting the rural way of life. 

“It’s not being gay or trans that was disruptive. It was like, ‘Don’t bring that city slicker shit out to my neck of the woods,’” Grover said. “People know my family as farmers and people who worked in the paper mill and the glass factory. People know that you show up to help in a barn fire. People know if you come to church. If someone is about to lose their kids, people know how to step up to help with food. We have all these mutual aid networks in rural places, so you have to show up.” 

Showing up and being present in the lives of others is the basis of any community, and it’s no different in Appalachia. Grover writes beautifully in her memoir about the rural goth scene she was a part of, which included a number of queer people who showed up for each other constantly. Whether poverty or loneliness, addiction or mental health, they helped one another navigate uncertain futures and achieve what sometimes felt like unattainable dreams, like going to college or finding a trade that would allow for some semblance of upward mobility. 

It’s in these passages that she addresses yet another stereotype about Appalachia: that if you are out in the region, there’s one queer community and it’s a monolith, so there’s only one “acceptable” way to be LGBTQ+. That, too, couldn’t be further from the truth. Not every queer person gravitated toward the goth scene Grover was a part of simply because they knew they’d be accepted there. There were other queer spaces to join, so there was no need to shoehorn yourself into a scene that you didn’t actually identify with. 

If Appalachia is not as inhospitable to trans and nonbinary people as the dominant societal narrative would have us believe, a world of possibility opens up for LGBTQ+ people who may feel pushed by queer culture to flee rural areas for the city, even though they find themselves more at home in more sparsely populated areas away from the coasts. Yet this pressure to flee reveals even more stereotypes about Appalachia that don’t hold up –– namely that the entirety of Appalachia is rural, so one must leave the region to live in a city. 

“Cornell University in New York is in an Appalachian county, but that’s not what you think of when you think of Appalachia,” Grover pointed out. “Look at West Virginia. The whole state is in Appalachia and parts are an hour or half hour from D.C. It happens everywhere.” 

And as Grover discovered when she moved to Columbus, Ohio –– the notoriously gay-friendly 14th largest city in the country just a half hour from Grover’s hometown –– the promises of a queer haven and community in the city don’t always happen as hoped for. 

“What makes you belong is different in the city. What gives you your card to the club of certain scenes is, do you know and cite certain histories? Do you know and like certain pop culture? Like how every queer person seems to know astrology,” Grover said. “I don’t remember at the time ever feeling like I needed to get out of my hometown and I don’t know that I ever wanted to. It just kind of happened…I had such a rich understanding of being gay and the lived experience of being trans in my home area with my chosen kin and my friends, then I got to the city and it was like everything I was doing was a cheap white trash knockoff of what the city had to offer.”

It’s not that Grover is discounting trans and nonbinary people’s very real concerns over safety and belonging, but rather that through Tar Hollow Trans, she’s casting light on experiences like hers, which don’t get talked about nearly enough.  

“A lot of people’s life stories are: I was closeted, I couldn’t come out in my hometown, so I went to the city and found community. Even though we know that’s not the case in all rural places and it’s not everyone’s rural experience, that’s the forgotten part of all this,” Grover said. “When you’re a country person, a rural person, and you’re Appalachian, you move to the city and you want to do that same kind of connecting but you don’t want to assimilate. A lot of times you’re locked out of the promise of community.” 

As Tar Hollow Trans shows, if we open our minds, trans and nonbinary community isn’t as difficult to find in rural places as city slickers might believe.

 Mandy Shunnarah (they/them) is an Alabama-born, Palestinian-American writer who now calls Columbus, Ohio, home. Their essays, poetry, and short stories have been published in The New York Times, Electric Literature, The Rumpus, Entropy Magazine, The Normal School, Heavy Feather Review, and others. Their first book, Midwest Shreds: Skating Through America’s Heartland is forthcoming from Belt Publishing. Read more at mandyshunnarah.com.

The post In Community and at Home as a Trans Person in Rural Appalachia appeared first on TransLash Media.

What was first puberty like for you? Those of us who knew we were trans, queer, or gender-nonconforming probably spent our teen years actively raging against the process. Others deeper in the closet may have simply sensed that something didn’t feel right. 

Compulsory cishet* culture presents puberty as miserable, embarrassing, and extremely inflexible. For queer and TGNC people who are initially excited about their transition, they may begin to view their second puberty with the same negative outlook. Because of anti-queer violence and censorship, we have been deprived of a whole, healthy connection to generations of queer and trans elders. This means that whatever traditions of queer coming-of-age which used to exist seem to be lost to time. 

While we mourn that reality, we also are presented with an exciting opportunity to shake off what doesn’t suit us from dominant culture(s) with flamboyant agency, and embrace our second puberty with a wily, trickster joy. Whether you’re micro-dosing, seeking a full hormonal transition, or doing neither, I want to help my trans and queer kin sense our empowerment and potential for magic at this incredible turning point. The single story of transition as a traumatic medical slog that we hope may end with cis acceptance is not the only one. We can dare to feel the parts of second puberty that are actually wonderful, potent, and magical.

You Have Time and Wisdom on Your Side.

In first puberty, most of us were rocked by devastatingly low self-esteem. To suggest that this doesn’t happen to trans and queer adults in second puberty would be very misleading: we still struggle deeply once we come out and become invested in making changes to our gender presentation. The mirror may lie or hurt us, and we grow impatient to see our future self bloom. 

Thankfully, as adults in second puberty, we have a great deal more perspective on our feelings than we did as teenagers. We can schedule regular therapy and talk to other queer people who remind us of our worth and beauty at every stage in the journey. 

When you’ve faced fears around things like medical access, transphobia, and coming out to those you love, some of the challenges that stymied you as a disempowered 13 or 14-year-old will now feel like child’s play. You aren’t a kid anymore, and the life experience you bring to your second puberty lends you confidence that will help you navigate this time. (It helps that once we start HRT most of us begin to age backward for a time—so it’s hard not to feel yourself!)

You Get to Create Your Own Rituals.

It may not surprise queer readers to know that many cisgender kids grow up into adults who feel deeply uncertain about their identities. Many cis adults aren’t sure if they are “real” men and women, or if they have done enough to prove their gender identities. Trans and queer people also question our validity all the time—the push to be “real” feels so much more important when our survival may depend on “passing.”

The uncertainty we feel due to missing out on adulthood rites of passage can also lead to depression and misdirected anger as uninitiated teens grow older without fully transitioning into self-assured adults. 

In second puberty, we can harness this knowledge and forge meaningful initiation traditions that help us grow into grounded, confident adults. You could choose to be recognized by community in a traditional ceremony from your faith. You could set yourself a difficult challenge or goal and find a mentor to help you achieve it. Your initiation could be a private ritual of intention done in Nature. Whatever path you take, slowing down and honoring the spirit of this moment is something most teenagers don’t think about. Now’s your chance to honor your transition in ceremony and grow up into the version of yourself that you’ve always wanted to be.

You Can Seek Community that Celebrates Your Authentic Self.

The greatest treasure in our second puberty is undoubtedly our chosen family, community, and queer kin. If your parents had awful things to say about your changing body the first time, odds are you won’t want them commenting on this transition. If your friends in school thought your bold fashion choices were ‘kind of gay,’ now you can surround yourself with the *definitely gay* crowd who are going to cheer you on with every strut (and share their cute clothes to help you build your closet and your confidence). Seek out people who uplift you, who remind you you are worthy and loved. With the wisdom you’ve gained through the years, you have a better idea of who deserves to be close to you during moments of vulnerability and upheaval. You deserve for your transition to be serenaded by a cheer squad, not by your worst critics.

Second puberty is full of second, third, and fourth chances that bloom in sequence, enriching our experience of life in ways we never thought possible before. People around you may not understand why you are taking a positive outlook—and they are entitled to feel however they feel about their own puberty, but one of your greatest qualities is that you are a free thinker who desires a felt sense of authenticity. Your spirit’s striving for authentic grace and beauty means your true coming-of-age can only be a powerful expression that has never been seen on this earth before. 

There is a unique trans magic infused into every step of your path and you deserve to enjoy it deeply. 

The post The Unique Joys of Second Puberty appeared first on TransLash Media.

Before I came out, my mother often told me my gender-neutral birthname had “worked out.” Strangers asked for my pronouns all the time, even before that was particularly common. 

It frustrated me because I didn’t get it! I was giving womanhood my best shot, even as it grated and chafed against my very being. In fact, I gave my cis girl self a last hurrah back in 2019. I was dating a butch lesbian and more than happy to be their femme. I dressed up, experimented with my hair, and tried whatever makeup I could endure for half a day. I even wore lingerie! I wasn’t just “girl,” I was “girlfriend,” which inexplicably fit a lot better than the former. 

Funny enough, this relationship reopened the long-repressed gender confusion I’d felt throughout my life. My butch ex-partner was a nonbinary lesbian and was the first person I’d met who identified that way in real life. Our conversations around gender led me to question my own. I only got about as far as experimenting with she/they pronouns before we broke up. 

Then the pandemic hit. 

All of a sudden, I was alone with my thoughts—and they were the worst possible company. Many of them had to do with hating the person I saw in the mirror. At the time, I thought I was just insecure, but in hindsight, it was textbook dysphoria. I impulsively chopped off the hair on my head, and let it grow wild everywhere else. If I wasn’t on a Zoom call, I paid little mind to what I wore. After all, nobody saw me, and I avoided looking at myself too hard. 

A lot of this changed when, on a whim, I tried a new creative outlet: live streaming. It seemed pleasant enough—a way to socialize from home or with strangers from all over the world. As a musician and general fan of performing, the format of having my own virtual audience was also exciting. My intention wasn’t vain—I just missed the chemistry and connection. 

I tried Instagram, Tiktok, and even Twitch a few times. The one I found the most success on though was Reddit. 

Success is a relative term, of course—I made about $12 total over a year’s worth of streams—but I had fun! For those not in the know, Reddit is an unconventional social media experience. It’s not about following people as much as it is following communities. These communities are called “subreddits.” So in a world where influencers dominate most other platforms, it stands out. There are few famous Redditors—but many famous “subs.” 

Additionally, in 2020, Reddit launched RPAN. RPAN let anyone stream from their phone or computer with ease, and because of how Reddit works, you didn’t need a massive follower count to rack in views. I’d stream for an hour or two and get view counts in the tens of thousands. For the most part, these viewers were normal enough—they shared song requests and commented on my playing, that kind of thing. 

However, I was a feminine-presenting person showing their face on the Internet. Specifically on Reddit, which spent a good deal of the late 2010s in hot water for being home to some major misogynist communities, among other things. The site even has a Wikipedia page dedicated to its “controversial” communities past and present. 

In short: the insults were inevitable. 

A lot of it was outright misogyny. Men asked weird personal questions, demanded I take off my clothes, and called me a bitch when I didn’t humor them. As a flautist, blowjob jokes were especially common. Due to my androgynous appearance, many viewers dipped into outright transphobia. 

“Boy or girl?” 

“What’s in your pants?” 

“How old is it?” (I’d get called an “it” a lot.) 

Transphobic slurs were also liberally hurled about—ones I don’t wish to repeat. To make it worse, after my streams, some men would berate me through direct messages. They would demand I shave and become a “real woman.” 

While the misogynistic and sexually charged comments were uncomfortable, there was something oddly thrilling about the transphobic ones. I’d spent my whole life trying and failing to feel comfortable as a woman, and these complete strangers had called my bluff. It felt electric. 

Soon, I was streaming on the regular, enduring “bad” insults to hear the “good” ones. I’d care less and less about my appearance, knowing it dragged in more insults, more people denying the womanhood I was too scared to deny on my own. When people asked, I’d say streaming was just a fun outlet and got me practicing my instruments, but that’s not the whole truth—I was addicted to how they interrogated my gender presentation. 

Two major factors broke me out of this vicious cycle. First, the insults became more than mean comments. Strangers from Reddit would find my other social media accounts, or become unsettlingly sexually explicit in private messages. Grown men would rant about their pornography addictions, their insecurity surrounding their genitals, their fantasies about having sex with lesbians, and all kinds of things without my consent. I realized that while they didn’t really see me as a woman, they didn’t see me as a person, either. 

Secondly, I reached out to my own support system. Despite my own confusion, I had plenty of out and proud trans friends by then. In fact, some of the first queer communities I found myself in were led by trans folks, and many of my childhood friends also ended up trans (which, in hindsight, should’ve told me something about myself). 

Seeing trans people in my life explore their gender identities opened my eyes. I watched them deal with dysphoria, and find healthy ways to express their euphoria. When I shared my own experiences they were not only understanding, but validating. They gently nudged me towards dealing with my discomfort and finding less dangerous ways of confronting it. Lighthearted avenues to my own euphoria came about as I played with my clothes, hair, and other kinds of presentation. 

The last major catalyst though—of all things—was a meme. My friend tagged me in a silly picture about the “different types of nonbinary friends,” putting my name beside an illustration of a particularly androgynous fey creature. For some reason, that’s what made it click: this picture of a pretty, genderless being, and my name right next to it. I realized my gender didn’t have to be repressed any longer, and it wasn’t something to be ashamed of. 

These days, I continue to prioritize joy in my gender journey, and the only validation I need is from myself. Femininity and I are back on good terms—I’m a nonbinary femme dyke, and couldn’t be happier. I also make art about my nonbinary experiences—Happy art! Funny art! The kind of art that I think could help kids who are as confused as I once was. If I can help at least one trans kid not hurt themself online, I’ll have done a good job. No trans person should have to find euphoria in cruelty. I deserved better—and so do you.

Featured image by Karolina Grabowska.

Alex Masse, AKA Fairything, is a 21-year-old writer, musician, and student residing in what is colonially known as Vancouver, BC. The arts are a longtime love of theirs, and their work has been seen everywhere from the Scholastic Writing Awards to Vancouver Pride, as well as in collaboration with Penelope Scott, artsUNITE, She Does The City, and more. They’re also a neurodivergent nonbinary lesbian, which greatly affects their process.

When not writing, they’re making music, and when not making music, they’re writing. Occasionally though, they can be seen working on their Communication degree or cozied up with a good book. Find them on Instagram and TikTok.

The post Streaming to Be Demeaned: My Addiction to Gender-Affirming Misogyny appeared first on TransLash Media.

Growing up, I was a Russian nesting doll, missing every layer but the tiniest figurine and the outermost shell. I slowly lost access to my innermost being as I spent most of my energy trying to figure out what made me so different. Well into adulthood, I semi-existed in this expansive gap between who I was and how people saw me. Eventually, I learned to turn myself off and mimic those around me. 

I would pray to God to make me a boy, but I resigned to the belief that God made me a girl because it was the best of two bad options. As puberty struck, my theory fell apart. The sensory experience of estrogenic development was hell and it never got better. At some point I heard the word “queer,” and it was like another layer suddenly appeared. At 26, I heard the term “non-binary,” and boom: I identified the next layer. I realized for the first time ever that I might one day feel whole.

This process, which I now understand as embodiment, continued as new words and phrases emerged: non-monogamous, PTSD, agender, animist. Yet, a gap still existed between the tiniest doll at the core, and the rest of me—that is until I was diagnosed with ADHD at 32 and encouraged to begin assessments for Autism. During that process, my body felt like a domino artist had just carefully toppled the first piece in an elaborate setup; the cascade ensued, and with each falling piece, every single memory and experience in my life began to make sense. I finally connected every layer of the set. Only then could I really articulate—to myself—what all of my other identities meant, especially being nonbinary and transgender. 

As I came to realize, transgender and autistic identities are widely misunderstood. This misunderstanding often stems from a lack of access to accurate information. There is also a misguided belief that transgender and autistic people are exceedingly rare, rather than inaccurately represented. These narratives come from a stubborn commitment to pathologizing differences and violently suppressing them as “threats.” 

So what do the words autistic and transgender mean? Transgender people are people whose physiological, psychological, spiritual, and emotional experiences do not align with their binary sex assigned at birth. The gender binary is an easily-disproved social construct in which only two genders exist, and they are inextricably tied to two specific combinations of genitalia, reproductive organs, hormones, and chromosomes. It then prescribes “acceptable” social and sexual choices based on these two combinations. 

Autistic people are people whose sensory, neurological, and communication patterns differ from what decision-makers (typically psychiatric and educational gatekeepers) consider socially typical or compliant. Autism lumps together a wide variety of behaviors and conditions related to the brain, the nervous system, and communication—some more obvious and disabling than others—which are collectively referred to as a neurotype. Autism is often described as a disorder, but most autists in the growing popularity of the neurodiversity paradigm argue that likening autism to a disorder is a product of the same constructs that uphold the gender binary. However, just as sex, gender, and body diversity exist—neurological diversity does, too. These are biological facts, not opinions. Yet, transgender and autistic identities are often used to deny the reality of human diversity rather than explore it.  

Unfortunately, transgender and autistic realities are often treated as matters of opinion rather than facts of humanity. This fuels narratives, research, and legislation that describe transgender and autistic existence in eerily similar ways. They emphasize mental deficits, social misery, inconvenience to disappointed parents, dramatic behavior, and inability or refusal to conform as justification for denying medical and bodily autonomy. Stories and representations of transgender and autistic people have been unhelpfully co-opted by people who don’t hold these identities. Angry novelists and comedians like JK Rowling and Dave Chapelle devote their media rants to vilifying transgender people by misusing feminist and racial liberation theories. Mothers of autistic children nonconsensually upload videos of their children in extremely sensitive emotional states and inappropriately define autism by their own intolerance for parenting.

Meanwhile, misinformed people incorrectly link vaccines to autism, and geneticists publish papers identifying “autism genes” with the express purpose of eliminating autistic people from existence.   Accurate depictions of autistic and transgender experiences are hard to find. Oftentimes, when we do see autistic and transgender representation, the narrative serves the comfortable illusion of normalcy that protects cisgender people (people who are not transgender) and allistic people (people who are not autistic) from the winds of difference. 

Everyone will benefit from learning the connections between trans and autistic experiences and identities: Transgender and autistic people, as well as the families, doctors, therapists, and teachers who often willfully misunderstand them. The everyday lives of transgender and autistic people are dominated by a social experience of surviving in a world that overwhelmingly denies the validity of their internal experiences and justifies subtle, egregious violence against them. Just as many queer people have been historically subject to non-consensual “corrective” therapies, many autistic people must survive programs like ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) whose definition of success requires “correcting” their natural tendencies. Some institutions still advocate for electroshock punishment for autistic children and refer to this child abuse as therapy. Legislators in Texas now threaten parents and doctors with child abuse charges if they provide life-saving healthcare to transgender children. These dystopian realities reflect how essential bodily autonomy, medical autonomy, and human diversity are to both transgender and autistic advocacy, especially in formal research and diagnostics. 

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is a highly influential insurance coding and billing manual. In its 5th edition, the DSM changed the required diagnostic code for gender-affirming medical care from “Gender Identity Disorder” to “Gender Dysphoria.” Dysphoria emphasizes internal sensory experiences rather than distance from social expectations. This allows transgender people to define themselves for themselves rather than for the parents and service providers who judge them as abnormal. Hopefully, formal labels for “Autism Spectrum Disorder” might see similar changes when research and media begin centering autistic lived experiences instead of parent and educator discomfort. Maybe then, society at large will realize that those people in their life they euphemistically label as “quirky,” “picky,” “weird,” and “special” not only deserve to be understood, but can also be welcomed into communities that will love and accept their differences. 

Ultimately, both autism and transgender identities are internal experiences that turn social conformity into a sensory burden that strains the nervous system. Both communities have a relationship to their bodies that challenges social expectations. This non-conforming sensory processing is not limited to the brain, as brains are attached to a nervous system that receives information through our eight senses and communicates with our entire bodies. Life in these non-conforming bodies is often the primary lens through which many transgender and autistic people experience their senses of Self.

And those bodies? They exist in a society that tells us our very sense of Self and our value as members of society depends heavily on our gender. How many people are asked not what kind of person they want to be when they grow up, but what kind of woman or man they want to be? Autistic and transgender people know viscerally that few socially acceptable responses to those questions actually exist. So, is it any wonder that people with an atypical bodily-sensory experience might often express their identity differences in the language of gender? 

Transgender and autistic people often find themselves obligated to explain their existence as legitimate expressions of human diversity. Therefore, both communities spend a great deal of energy deconstructing the relationship between bodies, communication, and identity. Consequently, both communities tend to be highly aware of the arbitrary social rules dictating “realness” and safety. This often results in “masking” or the hiding of one’s true self for survival. Unfortunately, too few trans and autistic people are able to connect their inner and outer expressions as I did. Masking saved my life, but at the expense of my mental health. That life-long distress could have been dramatically reduced by receiving affirmation rather than constant correction. I often wonder how differently the DSM would describe these experiences if professionals acknowledged the impact of this survival process without blaming us for it. Understanding the foundations of neurodiversity and gender diversity as inextricably linked to sensory processing can help many trans and autistic people shift from surviving to thriving.  It can  help service providers create support frameworks that do not rely on the very tactics that cause distressing symptoms in the first place. It can help families stop harming the children they are supposed to honor. Researchers who do acknowledge these sensory patterns have demonstrated meaningful connections between gender and neurodiversity: Autists and people with ADHD are more likely to identify as queer and/or gender non-confirming; similarly, transgender people exhibit autistic traits at higher rates than cisgender people. Identity terms describing these combined experiences, such as “autiegender” and “nueroqueer” reveal how natural these connections can be. Many autistic and transgender people view their experiences both as a spectrum and as an identity that cannot be separated from who they are.

These identity spectra are not linear for either group. If you spend enough time on the #actuallyautistic side of social media, you’ll find a pie chart in which each triangular section represents various autistic traits including sensory hypersensitivities, intensely euphoric or dysphoric bodily sensations, empathy, increased pattern awareness, critical thinking, social anxiety, atypical body movement, creativity, atypical communication, and many more. Each section is colored in to varying degrees to indicate which of these experiences are the most present. Each autistic person will have a different pie chart. Then, take a closer look at those traits. Consider how many also apply to transgender people. Anyone who has had the privilege of loving or living as a trans person knows the answer is, “a lot!” Rates of physical and social dysphoria, mode of expression, and desire to “fit in” dramatically vary amongst transgender people. Of course, every transgender person would also have a different pie chart. But one thing is for sure—we all have non-dominant bodily-sensory experiences that determine how we see ourselves and how we experience the world.

In this world where people in positions of power use difference as an excuse to institutionally abuse transgender and autistic people, it is essential that we direct formal research and casual self-education toward building connections between various types of difference. When we do this, we can develop language to effectively communicate basic truths about what it means to be a person and a society. This includes the fact that every single one of us is different, whether we feel the need to label it or not. Some people just happen to be different in ways that society refuses to support, while others can more easefully suppress their differences to conform to society. Transgender and autistic people, whose differences are rooted in sensory experiences and therefore lead to nervous system distress when ignored, can’t conform to society’s expectations without serious mental health consequences. But what if that does not mean that they are broken? What if it instead indicates that a society that cannot accommodate the full truth of humanity—that will not accommodate the full spectrum of its citizenry—is actually what needs fixing?  

Resources

• TransLash Guide: Resources For Trans People On The Spectrum
• Radically Open Dialectical Behavioral Therapy: What Is It And Is It For Me?
• Trans-Affirming Mental Health Resources

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