Searching for Our Past: A Review of Histories of the Transgender Child
As trans people, we are often hungry for the stories of other trans people, including those who came before us. We may be particularly attracted to stories of early resilience and successful living. It was those stories that I was hoping to find when I eagerly...
Seeing Ourselves Reflected in the Literature
Books about sexual violence very rarely mention trans and non-binary survivors, which is why Intersections of Identity and Sexual Violence on Campus: Centering Minoritized Students’ Experiences, edited by Jessica C. Harris and Chris Linder (2017), stands out. The...
I Stopped Meditating. Then I Watched Pebbles Meditation.
As COVID drags on, many trans and nonbinary survivors may find our mindfulness and meditation practices growing stale or agitated, or even outright abandoned. It can be difficult to find ways to stay connected with our body and breath “in these uncertain times,”...
ACEs: What do we make of the hand we’re dealt?
What are ACEs? The ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) Study was once called “the most important public health study you’ve never heard of.” But by now, you may have heard of it, seen a movie about it, or seen an ACE questionnaire in your intake paperwork at your...
Two Transgender Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) Books Published
Two newish books are the first to be devoted to transgender intimate partner violence. Unfortunately, unless you are a researcher, they are probably not the books you’ve been waiting for. “Absurdly, she would just yell ‘knees!’ at me to end any conversation she did...
Dangerous Stories: Narratives of Domestic Violence and their Painful Limitations
We tell a story about domestic violence in our culture. Each time we tell it, we give it more life, build with it a reality, until we cannot imagine a version of intimate partner violence outside of it. The story goes like this: a heterosexual cisgender woman is in a...