Found this Time Magazine cover story in the waiting room for our (queer) family doctor (and lots of other doctors) (next to the trans clinic though, where our cousin is about to get their first T shot!!!!!!!)….
It starts out, “In Park City, Utah, students are lining up at a local high school to get their locker assignments for the semester.
"Extracurricular clubs have set up tables to attract new members. It’s only midday, but the Gay-Straight Alliance, a group with outposts at about a quarter of American secondary schools, already has 47 names on its sign-up list.
"Sitting behind piles of rainbow-colored paper cranes – a hot fundraising item – the group leaders are counting the different identity labels they’ve encountered.
"Sure, there’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender. But there are more. Way more.
”‘There are people who are pan,’ says 17-year-old club president Grace Mason, meaning pansexual. There’s also aromantic, asexual, genderqueer, two-spirit, and on and on.“
Other amazing nuggets:
* Bud Light did an ad saying that beer was for "people of all genders”
* GLAAD did a survey just for Time Magazine that said 20% of millennials identify as something other than straight-and-cis, compared with 7% of baby boomers (which just goes to show how important visibility and education are)
* the study also said that millennials were about twice as likely as boomers to know someone who is “bisexual, asexual, queer or questioning” (it’s not clear to me whether that included gay, or whether that question was looking specifically at the less visible sexual orientations – and clearly not looking at gender)
* it includes very brief profiles of a bunch of people who talk about why they see gender and sexuality as fluid
* (which I also love because it’s a message that most often comes from the bi, pan, and ace communities, including in these profiles)
* Tumblr shout-out: “Marie McGwier, 26, started selling 'GENDER IS OVER! IF YOU WANT IT’ shirts online… for about $20 apiece. (Proceeds go to charity.)…. Before anyone can purchase one of the T-shirts, they’re asked to send a message saying what the statement means to them. McGwier [who is queer and gender nonconforming], publishes the responses on Tumblr.”
* Weird fun fact: “Back in Kinsey’s day, many men felt more free to engage in same-sex behavior, even if they didn’t talk about it,” because fewer people thought of being queer as a separate identity that you had to avoid being associated with.
* This is a very white American view tbh, there are still a lot of communities where doing it is fine and doesn’t mean you’re queer, as long as you don’t make it a part of Who You Are.
* also weird: they talk about Kinsey and mention trans author Julia Serano, but don’t mention that they’re both bi
* in addition to demonstrating how normalized ace and aro inclusion is in the larger queer community, the article demonstrates how normalized being nonbinary is in the larger trans community.
* one example: Nick Teich, 34, a trans man who started the first summer camp in the US for transgender youth, talks about how a lot more campers now check the “other” box for gender on their intake forms.
* “We have a growing number of kids who identify as genderqueer, non-binary, gender variant. People put 'demigirl,’ 'genderless,’ 'no gender,’ 'all genders,’ 'pangender.’ We get things all the time, and I’m like, 'What is this? I have to look this up.’”
* they also quote Tyler Ford, who is agender, they/them pronouns, who identified as a trans man for a bit, took T until their body was where they wanted it to be, and then stopped.
* This is important to me because that’s true for a lot of nb people, and too many people characterize that as “detransitioning”. It’s not.
* And for a while, years after transitioning, I presented as a femme woman, and it really bothered me to think that my trans friends would see that on Facebook or in person and think I wasn’t trans anymore. Like how people will think you’re not bi anymore when you get into a relationship with a binary-gendered person.
* They quote one gender fluid high schooler who has been abused at school for being nb, called an “ it” and “creature.” Which is important to me because a lot of cissexists and truscum claim that nb people don’t experience that and aren’t oppressed.
* They close the piece with a quote from that same bi senior GSA president: “I know it’s one of those things in life that could be easier, but I know who I am. And I’d rather be who I am and be authentically me than try to fit into one of those crappy little boxes. I have a great box that I have made for myself.”
* anyway I’m kind of in love with this article and I’ve never seen an article from Time that didn’t seriously piss me off at some point so that’s amazing
* I especially love how it parallels bi and trans experiences around fluidity, being liminal people, without spelling that out. Showing, not just telling.
