Hi Loves,

We’ve gotten some messages lately from readers expressing disappointment that their profiles haven’t been posted yet. It’s true. And I know it sucks. I’m sorry. But it has absolutely nothing to do with us not liking you.

It has to do with the fact that there are TONS of you. Seriously. We’re getting 50+ profile submissions a week right now, and our site is welcoming over 12,000 different visitors a month. We weren’t planning for this. But we’re really really glad you’re here.

For the last 8 or so months, we’ve been running three posts a day. Here’s why:

1) It’s a reasonable workload for our volunteers.

2) It’s active enough that you get to see a lot of variety.

3) It’s slow enough that it still feels like a spotlight — like what we’re showing you right now is special.

I’m not saying that this is the perfect pacing — there’s definitely room for us to grow — but I do want you to know that there’s a bottleneck here. We only have space to run about 10% of our submissions at the moment. And the posts we do run have often been in our queue for several weeks. So if you’re checking back a few days after you submit your profile, you’re getting a jolt of disappointment. And I hear you. That’s feeling crappy right now.

For the time being, I ask you to view this project as a publication rather than a social networking site. We’re not expressing your thoughts in real-time — we’re accepting submissions, sorting through them, and presenting a beautiful, curated, artistic collage of our identities in an endless stream over time. That’s all this project is.

And you’re right. We do need more.

At the moment, the best resource I know of for “more” is Queeries, a social networking site for a very broad mix of identities, and I encourage you to check them out (just sign up and you’ll see what I mean inside). You can also dive into our Facebook group, which lets you comment in a way that’s attached to your profile. And there are a few other good sites listed on our site’s sidebar.

If anyone else knows of good places for Genderforkers to connect and express yourself, please post them below.

And again: We’re really really glad you’re here.

Thanks and love,

Sarah Dopp
Founder of Genderfork

Yes, yes, I know, you’ve been nudging me for this for OVER A YEAR! Well, we finally built it. I present to you with…

*drum roll please*

The Official Genderfork Photo Submission Form

*happy dance!!!!*

We’re also including the option for you to add a description to the photo, so readers will know what you especially want them to pay attention to.

Special thanks to Photo Curator Adisson who’ll be taking the reins on this one.

And thank you all for your amazing contributions, everyone!

Lots of love,
Sarah Dopp
Founder/Director of Genderfork

Hey Peeps!

We just added a new form to our “Participate” section (it’s on the sidebar) called Ask Genderfork!

Our kick-ass volunteer Booda noticed we were getting a stack of submissions that were really just questions directed back at the community, so we figured, cool, let’s make a whole inbox for that! And here it is. If you’re looking for tips and resources or just want some straight up advice, go use this form like it’s a direct line to a whole lot of smart friends.

This stream of awesomeness will be edited and curated by our fabulous volunteer Zory, who is also master of the Recommendations. (Really ya’ll, Zory freakin rocks.)

» Ask Genderfork «

Hey Loves,

A reader just contacted me to discuss how invisible femme gender roles are in the queer community, and what we might be able to do about that. We talked about the possibility of creating a new community expression space that specifically focuses on and celebrates femme identity.

Is this something you’re craving, too? Would you be interested in helping to shape/organize it?

If so, please send me an email at: [ sarah at genderfork dot com ]

… and put “femme identity” in the subject line so I don’t lose it. I’ll get you in the loop.

Lots of love,
Sarah

Hey Beautifuls,

In case you haven’t already slyly discovered it from our sidebar, we have a LIVELY wonderful community going on over at http://www.facebook.com/genderfork. It’s an auto-generated feed of the content from this blog PLUS the content from our Twitter feed (displaying as “status updates”) PLUS whatever random photos and links people fans are contributing with Facebook’s tools.

My favorite part, which is harder to replicate in a blog or Twitter feed right now, is the “Like” button. When the other volunteers and I scan the page and see “23 people liked this” under a post, we know we’re onto something. Please keep giving us this awesome feedback.

PLUS it’s easy to find and connect with other Genderforkians in the land of Facebook. If someone strikes your fancy, try adding them as a friend and including a note that says “Hey, I found you through Genderfork… you seem awesome! I’m _____. We have a lot in common.” Or, you know, something phrased less awkwardly than I would say it.

Anyway, come play! http://www.facebook.com/genderfork

Love,
Sarah Dopp
(the quiet happy founder of this here community space)

I just had the privilege of interviewing the ever-charming and brilliant S. Bear Bergman, author of the newly released book of essays, The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You.

I managed to get a copy of the book, and I need to tell you: it’s wonderful. It’s about life in the middle-ground of gender, and all the many ways the world around us hiccups as we try to live our lives. It’s encouraging and honest, and you should go buy it right now.  There are very few people out there who are telling our story well in a mainstream medium. But Bear is one of them.

Here’s the official spiel:

Alternately unsettling and affirming, devastating and delicious, The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You is a new collection of essays on gender and identity by S. Bear Bergman that is irrevocably honest and endlessly illuminating. With humor and grace, these essays deal with issues from women’s spaces to the old boys’ network, from gay male bathhouses to lesbian potlucks, from being a child to preparing to have one. Throughout, S. Bear Bergman shows us there are things you learn when you’re visibly different from those around you—whether it’s being transgressively gendered or readably queer. As a transmasculine person, Bergman keeps readers breathless and rapt in the freakshow tent long after the midway has gone dark, when the good hooch gets passed around and the best stories get told. Ze offers unique perspectives on issues that challenge, complicate, and confound the “official stories” about how gender and sexuality work.

But getting to the juicy stuff…

Continue reading »

And so it goes when they’re rocking academia and doing gratuitous oodles of crazy wonderful things… sometimes volunteers have to pare down their commitments and move on to that next fierce post for changing the world.

Thus, we’re sad to announce that Jakk, one of our devoted photo curators (who’s been on staff since I first cried “Help me!” last December, 2008) is stepping down.

Jakk
Photo Curator

adrift somewhere in the sea of college academia, jakk is agendered with some happily displayed masculine and feminine qualities for flair. gender pronouns aren’t a big deal for him, and she’ll answer to “she”, “he” and “xe/ze”. xe’s first loves will always be writing and reading, but he also has a thing for wrestling, and artmaking (of any sort), and all things glam, drag, or burlesque. and maybe she dreams of growing up to be the next amanda palmer meets dr. frank-n-furter meets ziggy stardust.

Jakk’s been blogging these photos.

That was a good solid ten months, Jakk, in which you trudged out into the world and found dozens and dozens of gorgeous, interesting gender variant portraits and brought them back like shiny pennies in your palms, offering them to our blog engine with a big excited grin, whispering, “Here.”

We’re happy that your life is full and thriving, we thank you from the bottom of our queerdo hearts for your service, and we wish you all the best on your journey ahead.

Hugs,
Sarah

p.s. You can always see who our amazing volunteers are over here.

I just received this request for help. Can you offer support or advice?

I am an androgynous female; I identify as female or androgynous most of the time. And I have a problem at school I’m seeking to rectify.

For graduation, we have robes. Girls wear white and boys wear green. When asked if that was mandatory, we were told it was. Any switching? No. I know there is at least one other person upset about this. It’s not purely a gender issue, but also an issue of separating the genders — mandatory separation of genders — which upsets the feminists in some of us females. Combine that with the fact that the white robes come with a ton of regulations (you can only wear white under them) and the fact that girls have a much stricter dress code (we must wear stockings), quite a few people are up in arms.

My request is for help from people with more experience with these things than I have. I need help getting support, building a convincing argument, just getting help making sure both genders are allowed to wear what they want to wear, to express their gender the way they wish to, and not feel closeted by this. I know if I have to walk across the stage on my graduation day in a white robe, it will break my heart. It seems trivial, but it’s a trivial issue in the first place that the school is reacting in an unreasonable, disrespectful, and unyielding way. I’m asking you, and the community to please help giving any advice at all you can.

Thank you,
Ellie

You can respond in a comment below or email Ellie directly:
ellieforpeace at gmail.com.

Thanks for your support,
Sarah

Hey Everyone! I’m in Chicago right now — just helped out with the fabulous BlogHer 2009 conference — and I met a woman who’s story brought me to tears. Her name’s Jen, she lives in the Chicago area, and she has a transgender daughter who is five years old.

This child, despite being raised as a boy, has insisted since her fourth birthday that she is a girl. It took some time for everyone to catch up, but as of a month ago, this child’s gender is being recognized within her family, and she’s being loved dearly for who she is.

She’s lonely, though. She’s about to start school, and many of her friends have stopped playing with her. She wants to know that she’s not the only one like herself, and her mother is searching for her community.

Jen’s aware of the Gender Spectrum conference coming up in Seattle on September 4th — and they’ll probably go — but it’s neither close enough nor soon enough.

If anyone can help connect this family to the community it needs (meeting another young transgender girl in Chicago would be phenomenal, but I’m sure there are also other friends to be had), please email me (sarah at genderfork dot com) or reach out to Jen directly at ecochicorganizer.com.

Thank you.

Love,
Sarah

Hey Beautifuls,

Did you notice that someone new has been posting those awesome recommendations you’ve been sending us? Meet Rory — our newest volunteer!

Rory
Recommendations Curator

Rory is a lil’ genderqueer elf who spends zir days doing crafts, riding bicycles, blogging, taking photographs, eating sushi, and working as a web administrator. Ze is a strong advocator of high-fives, self exploration, and American Sign Language. If you want to impress Rory, use gender neutral pronouns. Mentioning a love for ElfQuest, definitely wouldn’t hurt either.

Rory’s been blogging these submissions from our “Recommend” form.

Please say hi!

Hi Beautifuls,

I want to alert you to this fantastic project that’s being run by my personal heroes, Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman. They’re creating an anthology of and about gender variant voices, and just announced their call for submissions. As Bear put it, they’re looking for pieces that “add to or advance the conversation about gender (as distinct from simply reflecting it, or lamenting it).”

I’ll be submitting. I hope you do, too.

Hugs,
Sarah

———

Call For Submissions
GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION
Kate Bornstein & S Bear Bergman, eds

Deadline: 1 September 2009

In the fifteen years since the release of Gender Outlaw, transgender narratives have made their way into cultural locations from the margins to the mainstream and back again. Today’s trannies and other sex/gender radicals are writing a radically new world into being. GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION (Seal Press) will collect and contextualize the work of this generation’s most forward-thinking trans/genderqueer voices—new voices from the stage, on the streets, in the workplace, in the bedroom, and on the pages and websites of the world’s most respected mainstream news sources. Edited by that ol’ original Gender Outlaw herself, Kate Bornstein and writer, raconteur, and theater artist S. Bear Bergman, GENDER OUTLAWS: THE NEXT GENERATION will include essays, commentary, comic art and conversation from a diverse a group of trans-spectrum people who live and believe in barrier-breaking lives.

Continue reading »

Hey Everyone, I’m very excited to introduce you to IdentityTBD, who’ll be helping me with the editing work around here. idTBD is someone I’ve known for many years, and I think you’ll find we share similar sensibilities.

And you can see the full list of your friendly Genderfork Staff over on the Volunteer’s Page.

Thanks for continuing to make this such a rich community.

Hugs,
Sarah

Hey Everyone,

I’ve been getting nudges from different angles to talk more about where to buy good genderqueer clothing… but i’m not really sure where to send people.  Can you recommend a few useful online stores?

Use the “Recommend” form and we’ll make a proper blog post out of it.

Thanks!

~Sarah

Hey Everyone,

We’re having a minor glitch with some content not appearing. Should have it resolved within a day or two.  Sorry for the strangeness.  Thanks for the patience. :)

xo,
Sarah

Update: FIXED! Sorry about that! Carry on!

Hey, Everyone! I recently spoke at Allegheny College in Meadville, PA about the “grey areas” of gender and sexuality. The event was sponsored by the school’s FMLA student organization (a feminist leadership group), and we called the presentation, “Sex, Queers, and Finding Home.”

I mixed up the talk by telling my own story, talking about Genderfork, performing some spoken word pieces about queer identity, and answering questions. Thanks to Sheik (one of our Genderfork volunteers), I have some pretty decent footage from the event, which I’m excited to share. (This is also one of my first ever attempts at video editing, so forgive the amount of time it took me to get it to you.)

Here’s a story about how my mom has handled conversations with me about gender and sexuality (I think you’ll find it amusing)…

More telling stories and answering questions…

• How do I approach someone when I don’t know their gender?
• About my queer identity
• Androgyny and attraction
• Discussing the origins and culture of Genderfork.com

And here’s a reading of some selected submissions from our awesome website here…

More spoken word and readings…

• “My Uncle”
• “God Hunt”
• “A Letter to My Mother”
  
• “Collision” (not safe for work)
• “Chicago Blood” (not safe for work)

The night was a LOT of fun with a great audience that was so wonderfully engaged it was humbling. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

And speaking of which… if anyone else would like to lure me out to a microphone somewhere, please send me an email: sarah at genderfork dot com.

(note: if you don’t see two youtube videos embedded in this post, try reloading the page. thanks.)

Hey Everyone,

Here’s our idea for a new game… The “Think Out Loud” form now poses a question, which we hope will get a bunch of people talking about a specific subject all at once. Our plan is to change the question about once a month or so, and see what that brings up. Currently, it’s:

Describe an outfit you’ve worn that expressed the complexity of your gender.

(okay, so that’s technically not a question, but you get the picture.)

You can still use the form to say whatever you want, as anonymously as you want. The prompt is just a suggestion.

Check it out: Think Out Loud

And let us know what you think of our new game in the comments below.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Lots of love,
Sarah

While we’re on the subject, a female-bodied friend of mine sent out this email this weekend:

Hello, Friends! I have been given the go ahead to wear a suit to my step-sister’s wedding instead of a bridal dress. Yay! Except I don’t know the first thing about finding a good suit for myself. You are recieving this email because I think: a) you have good taste in clothing in general b) might know a thing or two about buying “men’s” clothing, especially for a formal occasion, and making them look good on a female body c) you might know something about being vertically challenged, smaller than average, or petite, and have some recommendations on where to get certain things and how to try on clothing without getting completely flustered because you’re not “average” size.

Just to give some perspective on the formality level of this wedding, the groom will be wearing a simple, single-breasted black suit from Banana Republic with a white tie. The rest of the men and tux-wearers were told to wear black ties. My sister told me not to worry too much about matching the groom or anything, just to get a suit I liked and knew I would wear again, and go with that. But it’s not like I need a ruffly tuxedo shirt or anything like that. Still, I get intimidated by buying new jeans! I would love any advice you all might have to offer, places to start, name brands to be on the lookout for. I am not looking to spend a MILLION dollars on my suit, but I am excited at the thought of investing in it and wearing it or parts of it again and again. I’ve also already gotten used to the certainty that things will probably need to be tailored. Better than some odd-colored fluffy tafetta thing I had to buy and never use again anyway, right? I think so.

Thanks in advance for any help you’re throwing my way!

She gave me permission to pass this on to you. Her body is petite, thin, and curvy, and she’s in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Can you offer advice?

Hi Everyone,

Things have been pretty happening around here, haven’t they? I’m loving the flow of material, conversations, and community. And I’ve mentioned you rock my world, right? Cuz you seriously, seriously do.

Soo… since we seem to be getting a little bigger and a little louder, we’ve also been getting a little more feedback on the directions we take with our content. More often than not, if some tension comes up, it’s usually around the issues of binary gender and categorization — whether or not we should be talking about people in terms of maleness and femaleness. This might seem weird, but we — as a project — intentionally try not to take a position on that issue.

Here’s why: We’ve gotten to know our community quite a bit through all the comments, submissions, and feedback you’ve given us over the last year and a half. And from what you’ve told us about yourselves, it seems like you come from a wide mix of backgrounds and identities.

I’ll be honest — my original draft of this post attempted to put you into three groups: those who identify outside of the binary system; those who explore their genders within it; and those who are friends, family, and allies of the kinds of people represented on these pages. And I was going to be all “community-building”-like, and describe the characteristics of each of these groups to you in concise detail, thereby helping you gain understanding of who else is here.

And then I realized I was full of shit (many thanks to the Genderfork volunteers for helping me see that).  I can’t tell you who you are. It just doesn’t work that way around here.   Any attempt I make to put your identities into summarized language is going to exclude and alienate a lot of you.

That makes this next part a little harder, but work with me here: Try for a minute to picture our beautiful, messy, complex, diverse mix of identities as a dinner party gathered around a table, trying to find common ground and a way to support each other. What do we have in common?  We all agree that it’s okay to play with gender — to mix things up and to walk down the street with ambiguity and androgyny. We agree that our personal stories are important and real. We agree there is beauty and significance here. And we agree that this experience is hard and that we need each others’ support.

Here’s where we disagree: We disagree on how labels should be handled. We disagree on whether “male” and “female” are inherent human categories (and we’re just playing with them) or whether they’re invented and could be scrapped altogether. We disagree on how everyone should think, and we disagree on what would make the world a better place. Pretty much any statement that’s big, sweeping, generalizing, categorizing, or summarizing is going to make somebody at the table feel like their identity doesn’t belong.

And go back for a second to what we all have in common: We all know that feeling sucks.

I offer this up as a point of reference — not as a request or an explanation. We’re certainly not perfect (Exhibit A: this post!), and we know we post things that don’t work for everyone at the table. But we try to be aware of the mix of needs, and to tone down content that could seem alienating to some folks. Whenever possible, we aim for intimate headshots and personal stories in the content we display. When we focus on experience instead of opinion, we tend to find our common ground.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for contributing, for commenting, for confiding, and for sharing this with your friends. In the last six months, we’ve quadrupled our readership and built a staff of 11 volunteers. There will be more changes, more energy, more wonderful things coming soon, and we look to you to help us maintain the integrity of the conversation.

So much love,
Sarah

About a week ago, we ran a post called Peace on Earth, which showed a line from a submission. The author felt our editing took the line out of context to the point where it misrepresented their views, and kindly let us know this in the comments. We’re sincerely sorry about this, and we’d like to offer you the whole submission now:

Kalliope Amorphous wrote…

Binary gender is just another prison that our society builds around us from the moment we are sprung squirming and shrieking into this world. I refuse to passively participate in a system that imposes it’s will on my right to authentic self-expression. I am also thinking that these rigid gender roles are energetically sending everything completely out of whack. The male archetype has grown more aggressive and lacking in compassion and the female archetype is losing her goddesshood. Now more than ever, we need to embrace non-binary gender roles. I am starting to think that peace on earth could have something to do with man embracing his inner woman and woman embracing her inner man.

And what are you thinking about gender right now?

Hey Everybody! Take a look at our new commenting system! We talked about the pros and cons and decided to do this for a one month trial. If it sucks, we go back to the old way. You tell me what you think.

I’m expecting there will be a few kinks to work out from the initial install, so if you see anything weird or have any tweak requests, please leave your thoughts here.

If you select to create an account when you leave your first comment, you’ll stay logged in (assuming this is your primary computer) and you’ll start accumulating a list of all your comments in one place. This is really cool, but totally optional.

You can also comment with OpenID instead of with your email address. If you use the internet a lot, there’s a good chance you already have an OpenID. And if not, they’re easy to get.

A note to anonymous and pseudonym-using commenters: This system doesn’t support anonymous commenting (sorry) — you have to go the pseudonym route. Just get a Gmail account under your fake name and use that when you fill out the form. Or make an OpenID. As with the old site, the system will display a your image if you’ve associated a gravatar with the email address you use, so be careful not to accidentally cross your identities that way.

Neat things:
– you can edit and delete your comments after you leave them
– you can get emails when people respond to you directly
– you can subscribe to full comment threads and watch the entire conversation over email if you want
– you can quietly report inappropriate comments to me so i know about the immediately

Okay… go play and tell me how it goes.