Tag Archives: politics

Aug 1 2017

Trans Politics: Brianna Westbrook on Healthcare, Trans Military, and HB2796

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TransEthics: What was it that first got you interested in politics?

Brianna Westbrook: I’ve always been interested in politics since a young age. I love being a leader for people. I just never thought that I could run for office until recently. The confidence was not there for me in my earlier years of life. The election of Donald Trump is what pushed me to use my voice. That was my breaking point. I saw a storm coming last year when he selected Mike Pence as his running mate.

TE: What was it about Pence that made you decide to run for Congress? Continue reading →

Jul 20 2017

Trans Artistry: Jessica Nightmare on Cis Discomfort, Sacrifice, and Politics

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TransEthics: When did you start drawing comic strips?

Jessica Nightmare: I’ve been drawing comic strips since I can remember. When I was really young, I drew these detective stories. I was a huge fan of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the Ninja Turtles so I liked drawing characters in trench coats, ha. But my stories made little sense seeing how I was 9 years old.

TE: When did you come up with the concept for Manic Pixie Nightmare Girls?

JN: Way back in 2011. Back then a lot of people were talking about the “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” trope you find in a lot of media. I thought of myself of fitting the trope perfectly except. Except because I’m a trans woman, I feel like I am many people’s nightmare. Continue reading →

Mar 23 2017

Trans Differential: Halley Wynn on Trans Bodies, ‘Deadly Babes’, and Ethics in Sex Work

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TransEthics: Your Twitter profile says you are a “muscle t-girl”… would you care to expand on what that means to you?

Halley Wynn: Well, there are two separate but inclusive fields of thought I have on that: The personal and the political. I like fitness, weight lifting, different movement arts and working out in general. Participating in these activities generally gives you increased muscle tone and increased mass depending on the type and volume of activity, because of this I identify as muscly.

Now for my political opinions, I feel like femme people but especially trans femme folks are incentivized to avoid muscle mass or lots of tone. Being that it is supposedly a masculine trait, and therefore being “overly” fit is akin to outing yourself according to some.  So I am a trans femme fitness enthusiast: Muscle T-girl. Continue reading →

Feb 2 2017

Trans Survival: Rani Baker on Dealing with Trolls, Transition, & Trump Era Fear

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TransEthics: Your band, Destroyed for Comfort, has a very unique sound. To those who have yet to experience it, how would you describe it?

Rani Baker: The music I perform is typically very sample-heavy, intentionally retro, low-fi, and abrasive, with heavily distorted vocals. The sound (especially live) has frequently been compared to Skinny Puppy, Alec Empire and Crystal Castles, but doesn’t really sound exclusively like any of those acts. Occasionally more melodic and/or experimentally structured work is composed, but I tend to take the stompier, more anthemic tracks live.

TE: How did you come up with your band’s name? Continue reading →

Jan 24 2017

Trans Reporting: Katelyn Burns on Writing, Politics, and Moving Forward

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TransEthics: What inspired you to get into writing for various media establishments?

Katelyn Burns: I never really set out to be a writer or even an activist really. I’ve always been fairly political and my interest in trans politics and theory extend back even into my teenage years. I always did a good job covering my tracks, so all of my reading was done in secret when I was still in the closet. One day, after I had decided to transition but before I had started hormones or come out to many people, I was really struggling with my own body. I’d lost 110 pounds already but still had a lot of internal baggage to work through. My therapist suggested writing about it as a therapeutic method. Continue reading →

Jan 10 2017

The Disturbing Endgame of ‘Clovergender’ Trolls

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The year of 2017 did not get off to the best of starts for trans and gender nonconforming people. 2017 wasn’t even five days old when a dangerously savage smear campaign raised its head from the bowels of the internet. It’s not the typical kind of trolling trans people have experienced before. It’s dangerously different.

Trigger warnings for child sexual abuse, pedophilia normalization, gaslighting, transmisogyny, and gender misappropriation.

Continue reading →

May 17 2016

Trans Sadism: Stacy Sadistic on Domming, Narratives, and Transition

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TransEthics: How old were you when you started pursuing sex work?

Stacy Sadistic: I was 23 when I first started doing things for money, but I had been in the fetish scene for many years before that. I had a girlfriend who introduced me to the fetish world. She took me to lots of fetish events, and introduced me to new things and new people. I grew up in a small town, so I was kind of repressed. I reluctantly got into cross-dressing at her request, but soon found that I really enjoyed it. We had sort of a switch dynamic, but after many years together, I realized she was abusive, so I left.

Its funny, because lots of people told me that I was “naturally submissive,” and would never be a good dominant. I don’t think BDSM is something I would have sought out naturally on my own volition, but after getting into it, I found that I enjoyed being able to give my partner a certain experience, the play was fun, and I liked the community. Continue reading →