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Reposted from PBS News Hour.
“A project by photographer Chloe Aftel aims to give greater visibility to the diversity of gender beyond “male” and “female.” For her series “Genderqueer,” Aftel photographed self-identified genderqueer individuals in their homes in an effort to explore a community that she says is too-often misunderstood.”
( Submit A Photo )
Affordable Jeans for Trans Men and Friends.
“Looking for Jeans to fit trans male bodies? Check this article on Qwear out!”
A reader wrote in asking about recommendations for affordable jeans for trans men. We surveyed our staff and the community about their favorite mens* jeans. It can take a lot of trial and error to find the perfect pair of jeans, but I promise they’re out there. Everybody is shaped differently, so these are just good starting places.
Reposted from Buzzfeed.
So few people, once you put the homeless label on them, are able to see [the youth] in any other way. But there’s power that comes with being the survivor of abuse, the survivor of homelessness. Having to assert your sexual orientation and gender identity makes you a really powerful person.
Photo from See Me, a book/project by Alex Fradkin, an award winning photographer, and Taz Tagore, co-founder of the Reciprocity Foundation, a not for profit organization serving the needs of homeless youth in New York City.
Reposted from The Cut.
From the article…
Once upon a time, maternity clothing was all bows, floral patterns, and muumuus. While it has evolved in the last few decades to include body-conscious styles that flaunt (rather than hide) “baby bumps,” it’s remained mostly conventionally feminine.
The founders of the new line Butchbaby & Co. want to change that. Vanessa Newman, a digital strategist, and Michelle Janayea, a design student at Columbia College in Chicago, are creating an alternative to hyperfeminine maternitywear aimed at LGBTQ folks who are starting their own families.
articles, clothing, faces, people, recommendations | 1 comment »
XylophoneGender recommends…
Submit Your Transgender/Gender Nonconforming Journey Story
PFLAG National is looking for your journey with gender identity and/or gender expression. These stories are for possible use in PFLAG National’s most popular publication for the parents, family, and friends of people who are transgender and gender nonconforming, and will be re-released later this year in a brand-new, updated edition.
Quotes will be run anonymously!
scarlet recommends…
It’s just a really useful resource, and much needed.
Asrik recommends…
It’s a great article on gender roles. (The blog is cool too but mostly less relevant to genderfork.) Here’s my favorite part of the post:
You are [sic] not a Woman, and I am [sic] not a Man. You may move through the world woman-ing, and I may do manly things, and we may enrich these roles and express them in a healthy way, but at core our bodies move in a dazzling, thundering, dynamic storm of circulating desire for the other-than-us, with potentials and predispositions, but nothing hammered down or definite.
I believe healthy, lightly-held roles make this whirling chaos of yearning more navigable, but they do not replace it. I feel fine to have chosen my version of the role of “man”, but it does not eclipse that one can pick from an infinite array of gender roles. Truly one must pity a culture reduced to the poverty of choosing from “he, she, and it”. He, she, and it? Really? Wow.
Erica (photo curator emeritus) recommends…
Stormy isn’t the only baby being raised gender neutral. Blogger Arwyn debunks ten common objections to gender neutral parenting, showing the reasoning behind many of the decisions she makes while raising her male-assigned at birth “boychick”.
Someone recommends…
Alice Dreger works with people at the edge of anatomy, such as conjoined twins and intersexed people. In her observation, it’s often a fuzzy line between male and female, among other anatomical distinctions. Which brings up a huge question: Why do we let our anatomy determine our fate?
There is also a transcript of the talk.
Two older but still fascinating articles:
Someone recommends…
This is the first time I’ve ever heard of such a public, nation-wide discussion of gender. I don’t think I agree with everything they’re trying to do, but -damn- it’s inspiring that they’re taking gender equality so seriously.
Ricky recommends…
I read this and thought of everyone here. The Swedes have introduced a gender-neutral pronoun to their language so people no longer have to use ‘han’ (he) and ‘hon’ (she).
Someone recommends…
I had to share this. I love long hair. There is something magical about all kinds of men who are not afraid to express themselves in gender non-conforming ways — and they have long hair! Enjoy.
Cuna recommends…
I dream of a world where every single one of these listed items is respected.
Some of my favourites are:
“6. No one’s gender should ever be assumed. No one should ever be assumed to have a gender.
7. You have a right to full control over your gender beginning at birth. No surgical alterations should be made on unconsenting infants in order to fit them into a certain paradigm of gender. Gendered names, pronouns, and descriptors should never be used until children can decide for themselves how they wish to be known to the world.
[…]
16. You have a right to total control over your own body and sole authority in making decisions about it.”Imagine that. Which one(s) are your favourites? What would you add?
Someone recommends…
As the title says, this is a photo shoot of men wearing an outfit from their girlfriends. From the photographer’s description: “He wanted to make images that showed not only the equality of balance in heterosexual relationships, but also the feeling of confusion the male may be experiencing with this change.”
I think Genderfork readers will appreciate this because of the portrayal of cis-gendered men in a feminine aspect and the reactions that may evoke. For example, one of the commentators on the original website said that the portraits made him feel uncomfortable yet curious how his girlfriend may have influenced his own gender expression over time.
lorainekv recommends…
How Cisgender People Can Help
Change in everyday institutions, such as your school, office, home, church, and non-profit organizations won’t happen overnight. However, you can speed up that process by showing peers, colleagues, and bosses that gender inclusive environments are important to everyone.
Hi Genderfork friends, this is lorainekv checking in. This article is my own piece – I wrote it to get some queer visibility going on Medium.com. Please feel free to leave me your feedback and ideas, either in the comments below or within Medium. Thank you!
XylophoneGender recommends…
Activist B. Cole (who launched the Brown Boi Project) wrote an article for Ebony Magazine about challenging gender norms and identifying as Black and masculine of center.
quarridors recommends…
This radio-style program discussed how the media covers nonbinary and nonconforming gender and what we can do to make that coverage better.
Hosted by Avory Faucette of QueerFeminism.com and Radically Queer, it featured guests with expertise in gender-neutral parenting, nonbinary identities, and media coverage of transgender issues, including Arwyn Daemyir, creator of Raising My Boychick; Gunner Scott, Director of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition; Nat Titman, creator of Practical Androgyny and the Nonbinary.org wiki; and Marilyn Roxie, creator of Genderqueer Identities and intern at the Center for Sex & Culture.
A recording of the entire show is available online (MP3).
The guests looked closely at some misunderstandings the media makes and how we can take action to educate and improve coverage. They considered topics including major media coverage of gender-neutral parenting and education in 2011, the media’s refusal to take supermodel Andrej Pejic’s stated identity seriously, and what articles on genderqueer and other identities get right and wrong. They also discussed the best way to cover less familiar gender identities, how journalists can describe gender in a way that is less harmful to nonbinary or questioning individuals, and how blogs and social media are changing the conversation.
Although the majority of guests were from the USA, Nat added a United Kingdom perspective.
Van Burnham recommends…
This is an interview from Model Mayhem on androgyny. The interview focuses on gender roles, the future of gender roles and how gender plays into photography and modeling.
Eli recommends…
I stumbled upon this article and found it really inspiring in that it features a couple already established as heterosexual who end up working through transitioning. I think it’s really sweet that they all stuck together, and I really admire their determination as a family.
Shaun recommends…
Sophia Chung shares her experience being a woman in the largely male-dominated engineering world. She says she’s proud to be breaking gender stereotypes, and I think that’s awesome. :)
A reader recommends…
Well done article on gender ID, especially in virtual world places like Second Life, from the point of view of the dreaded stereyotype- “fat guy dressed like hawt chick.”
