Homophobia & Transphobia Archive

  • Sub-Categories
    • No categories

Transgender Day of Remembrance, 2015

Another year has gone, and sadly, so have way too many people. Transgender Day of Rememberance is the day where we remember those who have lost their lives to transphobic hatred. Please take a moment to remember them, and to recognize that the vast majority of these victims were women of colour.

Hanners Blackthorne,
Creator, QueerMentalHealth.org

Transgender Day of Remembrance, 2014

Trigger Warning: Violence, Transphobia

Today is the day where we take a moment to remember all the trans people murdered because of anti-trans bigotry. There are 78 names on the list this year, a horrifying number.

Transgender Day Of Rememberance, 2013

Trigger Warning: Transphobia, Murder, Hate, Suicide

This is the time of year I dread. I wish we lived in a world where we didn’t need a day like the Transgender Day of Remembrance, but we do. And the numbers are staggering, growing each year. Not because more trans people are being murdered now than ever before (though that may also be the case), but because more victims are being recognized and identified as transgender, and more of these crimes are being reported and recognized as crimes.

Bad Psychiatry Still Haunts Us

In 1988, when I had just turned 14, I made the life changing mistake of trying to figure out what I was using the materials I had on hand. In this case, it was a copy of the book written by Dr. David Reuben in 1968, “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (But Were Afraid to Ask).” The book came from my mother’s top shelf on adult topics, and for a kids just hitting puberty and dying slowly with the changes, I needed answers. Namely, why did puberty feel so wrong, why did I feel a need to be female, and why did I pray every night to wake up right.

Staying In vs. Coming Out

I have no beautiful words to share or anything to make the pressing issue of coming out an easier one. I have nothing to offer but the advice I have been given and continue to follow in protection of myself.

It is very much okay to stay in. It is very much okay to find safety in the proverbial closet. Staying in, is in itself, sometimes needed for survival. It is okay to keep your sexuality/lack thereof, gender/lack thereof, tucked away and safe within your chest.

An Interesting Hypothesis

In the early 1950’s, a well known Canadian psychiatrist named Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron developed the concept of “psychic driving.” The idea was that mental illnesses could be cured by reprogramming new narratives into subjects. He recruited from the local community to participate in his studies. Most of his volunteer subjects suffered from relatively minor psychiatric complaints, such as neurosis or depression.

Ramifications of Queer and Mental Illness Visibility

While part of my identity is “Out of the Closet”, as the thrift stores I frequent so gaily proclaim, the mental health side of my identity is still partially in the closet, a monster in the closet that emerges and slides back in as I hide blog posts, switch back and forth my internet expressions, erase tweets, and deep down know that the internet knows everything forever. Spokeo owns me and it owns you.

Today, Like So Many Others, Is A Great Day

Editor’s note: This story mentions some severe triggers. Please be careful about reading this story if you are easily triggered by the topics mentioned in our trigger warning.

Trigger warnings: Abuse, including torture and child sexual assault, forced confinement, rape, violence, bullying, and hate crimes.

Yesterday/today was/is a great day. A day to celebrate. Any day that slaps me upside my head and and asks, “WTF you bitching about?” is always a great day!

Involuntary Invisibility: How It Hurts LGBT*Q People Mentally

We clearly have this need to see ourselves in and to identify with some of the images we’re being shown daily. It satisfies two of our humanistic needs: to belong and to have self-esteem. If we do not see ourselves represented in politics and the media, we might not feel included; we might not get that sense of community we need. Furthermore, if we do not see ourselves in these images and are being given the message that these images are the “right” or the “normal” way to be, we will most likely have a lower self-esteem.

The Table Scraps Mentality

But it’s budgets, of course. No one’s fault, per se. And you can’t argue with a budget. Universities are following the WalMart model of pump and dump cheap employment, and desperate graduates are the casualties. This is not likely change, and is only likely to get worse, as the turnover rate of recent PhDs increases seemingly exponentially.