Hello, everyone! I hope that you’re all having a wonderful week so far!
The Adventures of Silver Girl seems to be doing well, which has me super excited. There’s not a lot better than seeing a story that means so much to me succeed. Thank you to everyone who bought a copy, who shared that it’s released… All of you mean a lot to me, because without my fans there would be no point in me doing this–at least not as prolifically as I do it!
Another book released from me this week of course, that being the third volume of my flash fiction series, Pocket Watches and Glazed Eyes: Twenty Tales of Erotic Mind Control.
To pick up a copy, check it out on Amazon here!
The other volumes, Volume 1, and Volume 2, can be found by clicking on their names in this line!
And of course, if you didn’t know, I update my website the day a new release drops, so it’ll always be on the front page ready for you to click and pick up a copy!
That said, you can tell by the title of this blog post that it’s a bit of a big one this week. It’s Trans Awareness Week, which leads right into the Day of Remembrance. It’s a day with a lot of significance, especially because until quite recently literally the only time that you’d hear about trans people was if they were victims of violence. Now you’ll hear about important trans people who are activists, who contributed dramatically to the history of computing, of entertainment, of literature… but that didn’t used to be a thing.
There was one other way that you’d hear about trans people–and that was a punchline. Our media had a very clear message: trans people are a joke, and then they’re killed for being trans. “Trans Panic” is still a legal defense usable in many jurisdictions. To summarize, it means if you kill a trans person and say it’s because you were so shocked they were trans you panicked and killed them, you can get off without consequence/penalty. How’s that for devaluing human lives?
The only way that I discovered there was a difference between transvestites and transgendered people was via reading the Chuck Palahniuk book “Invisible Monsters” and then doing online searches because it seemed so… impossible. Not in a way I wanted to mock, but it seemed like something the world had denied as existing for my whole life.
I was pretty young at the time, sixteen or seventeen. That experience changed my life, and allowed me to begin my transition, to be able to live my life in a way that actually makes me happy about my identity. These days young people learn what it means to be trans through hearing about bathroom bills or other things that demonize the trans experience–or people trying to protect trans people from that. The landscape has changed a lot, and I hope it will continue to change. No one deserves abuse for their identity.
I’ve stayed stealth online because to me, being trans is not something that I enjoy having as an active part of my identity. While to say there’s no difference between being a trans or cis woman would be disingenuous at best, I still dislike being defined by my status as a trans woman. I respect those who loudly celebrate this aspect of their identity, but I do not identify similarly. Maybe it’s due to the many abuses I’ve suffered, from being assaulted, degraded, harassed, stalked… but it’s regardless how I interface with who I am. It probably doesn’t help that before more trans voices started to emerge in the Erotic Mind Control Community, and the Hypno Community, they were pretty… backwards about trans issues.
It’d be pretty fair to say ‘downright shitty.’
Why am I posting this now? While I don’t like it being a part of my identity that is used to define me, I also hate how hiding it has kept me silent. Truscum attitudes are often an accepted part of both communities, and they should not be. Casual transphobia is hardly rare as I’d like. That there are trans people who are loudly and aggressively trans as a counter to abuses against them is not surprising. It’s not my reaction? But I respect it. I value it. I won’t silence it.
I don’t intend to make this something I talk about very often, but there has been too much death, too much injury, too much abuse, and too much suffering associated with trans identities, and as someone who has been told by more than one person that I was important in helping them define their sexuality… I don’t want to force myself to be silent all the time because I want to stay in the shadows while also not wanting to appear to be using ‘assumed cis’ privilege to discuss trans issues.
This is a week of awareness, because even in a time where people are aware trans people exist the awareness that many trans people are self-isolated because of a world that has taught them they are unwelcome, unsafe, and unwanted… that’s not as well examined. The issue of “should trans people be allowed to pee without harassment” is a major one, but it all comes down to a question of “should trans people be allowed to exist without constant abuse” and it’s all too obvious far too many people say ‘no’ on a regular basis.
This trans week of awareness, try to be aware of the trans voices around you, of the potentially trans people around you that you are unaware of, and the future trans people who will live in this world and need to interact in it based on how we grow our society today.
Let’s make it so the Day of Remembrance doesn’t need to add more names.
Let’s make it instead, so more trans people feel safe existing.
Until next time, take care of yourselves, and each other.