Growing up I had a number of women graciously step into a mentor role for me. Sure, I was an obvious outcast amongst my school peers. I was always a fat kid and in middle school I started wearing “boys” clothes and cut my hair. I sulked through the halls in my oversized hoodies (even in the summer months) in an attempt to hide my fatness. Teachers, advisors, and case-workers alike could easily point me out of a lineup as a marginalized kid - obviously fat and painfully gay for all of my friends.

Whether it was my homeroom teacher, my drivers ed instructor, or my guidance counselor, women (specifically queer women) really showed the fuck up for me. They acted as a bridge that was vital to accessing resources and care that kids in my position typically fall through the cracks over. Opportunities are harder to come by for the prior foster care kid living in poverty with a neglectful parent.

In addition to looking out for opportunities for me, I think my mentors took me under their delicate and magical angel wings because they also saw in me a desire to be mothered. To be seen and held without guilt or emotional labor on my part. Once aware of my home life situation; the instability of my mom’s mental health, these women saw me needing reliable caretaking and found ways to provide that to me in their own circles.

When I look back, I can see that they each clearly wanted to teach me about health, self-love, and confidence. Things I so clearly needed and weren’t being modeled for me at home. They wanted to connect me to community. They wanted to help me come into my own. And each mentor had their own unique ways of showing me these new worlds; liberated worlds free from insecurities and fear. Sometimes they hit the nail on the head, other times not so much.

My homeroom teacher in middle school took me to my first night club experience in Northampton, MA. It was called Dance Spree and I was 12 years old. That sounds kind of ridiculous now as I write this as an adult. But it was western Massachusetts in the early 2000s, all age dance gatherings of queers in the spirit of unfettered liberation was all the rage.

And I learned so much that night. Like that when given the space, thin white queers will roll all over each other to strange sounding music as a way to process emotions. Also: tequila is disgusting! But most importantly, I learned that just because I feel alone sometimes, it doesn’t mean that I am. Even if the mainstream world wasn’t providing me with space to feel free, the underground world undoubtedly did. I just needed to find them.

Unfortunately, sometimes the solution my mentors had was to try to fix my fat problem. Instead of liberating me from the chains of societal expectations, they would step in with compassion and inspiration, boasting about how possible it would be for me to be smaller and fit in.

When I was 16, my driver’s ed instructor who was a boisterous and crass do-it-yourself type of stocky, independent woman, noticed me hiding in her class and stepped in to do her thing. It wasn’t hard to get me to open up and talk about my home life, or how I felt about being a lonely fat person, I was desperate to be tended to. And our conversation quickly turned to solutions.

“You know what my sister did? It’s going to sound crazy, but it worked!” She said building up suspense. I was curious, a 16 year old who had already lived a lifetime of forced dieting and exercise with zero results. Of course I wanted more information, give me all of the handy tricks and life hacks to free me from this body.

“Coffee grounds.” My eyes widened.

“The caffeine in coffee grounds stimulates the fat cells and burns them away! My sister used the wet coffee grounds from her coffee pot every day before her shower. She’d rub them all over her problem areas, belly, arms, thighs…and swear to God she lost the weight!”

I desperately wish I wasn’t gullible enough to believe that shit. Listen, it was a different world back then and we didn’t have access to information about fad diets and phony weight loss hacks yet. The internet was not as vast then as it is today! My heart breaks for little 16 year old me. I left that conversation with my driver’s ed instructor more inspired than ever. I looked up to her for her confidence, her desire to be loud and seen was appealing to me. And I thought I’d finally found the trick to losing weight without starving myself or putting my body through painful exercise. I trusted her insight.

As embarrassing as it is, I tried the coffee ground weight loss hack. I snuck the coffee grounds into the bathroom so my parents wouldn’t see. I didn’t want to have to explain what I was up to. I stood in the shower and frantically rubbed the grounds all over my body; the problem areas were…all of them? So I scrubbed and exfoliated every nook and cranny I could reach. My belly, my thighs, my knees, my double chin. It all had to go. But when it came time to dispose of the evidence, I felt such embarrassment. I looked at the tub filled with soppy brown grains and realized, this was ridiculous. I was way too large for any caffeinated cell stimulation to resolve my big fat problem. And it certainly wasn’t going to happen overnight.

The consequences to the unsolicited coffee ground weight loss advice were minimal. No one was technically hurt in the making of my deliciously smelling, soppy shower mess. But I find myself reflecting a lot as an adult about the ways my mentors could have had such negative impacts on my life, had I blindly followed their advice. Just a couple of years after the coffee grounds incident, another mentor nearly got me wrapped up in a cult. I’m not using that word flagrantly, I do mean a legitimate and certifiable cult.

Subscribe now

Read more

I can’t fully express to folks on the coasts what it’s like to be a queer person in the midwest. When I first moved to Kansas from New England, it felt like I was traveling back in time. The cities move more slowly. Tech and science feel placated while religious organizations build mega churches on every corner. The word “progress” means an entirely different thing here.

There is a unique experience of camaraderie amongst the queerest of us, an understanding of the specific challenges living in the midwest brings. Prairies and farmlands as far as the eye can see, while beautiful, separate our access to resources like universities and health care providers, job opportunities and one another. We are bonded over feeling cut off from the ideals and “progresses” happening on the coast. While leftist political movements in blue states are to be celebrated, they don’t apply to us.

Subscribe now

We find solace in simplicity. We celebrate wins that feel like they should not have to be fought for. Pronouns don’t land very high on the priority list for my queer and trans peers in Kansas. They’re still trying to maintain employment without being fired for being trans. Quietly using a bathroom on campus just to pee without being fined. Or keeping a valid driver’s license. Seeking hormones from a doctor who knows even a single thing about what to expect when starting HRT.

I live in a rural town just outside the liberal hub of Lawrence, Kansas. I love my neighbors, perhaps the most leftist in the town, who happen to reside on the same street. They aren’t sure what to make of my pronouns, they make certain to just call me Jay. But they wave every single day with a big smile on their faces. They walk by with their dog and stop to chat about the bizarre political landscape and to bring me pot brownies. My neighbors mean everything to me here; their homes surround my soft trans heart like a comforting hug.

When we first moved to the area 5 years ago, we took it upon ourselves to explore the local restaurants (there aren’t many). A delightful Mexican place, a Sonic, Burger King, and the Pizza Hut that actually shut down this summer because the roof caught on fire during July 4th celebrations. Side note: there are no rules for fireworks in the rural lands of the midwest. If you have trauma around unexpected bangs and booms at all hours for 2 weeks out of the year, rural living may not be for you.

We obviously had experienced Sonic and Burger King before, but our other pizza joint, Gaminos, was new to us. It is a chain restaurant, but with the weekly Facebook updates and community involvement, Gambinos is perhaps the most active business in our small little town. It’s giving “community center,” honestly. And I’m sure that has much to do with Bambi.

Now Bambi works at the Gambinos, but I’m not sure of her title. Maybe she owns the place, she certainly acts like it. An older woman in her 60s with a full-on lesbian haircut, (think Ellen if she was a sturdy farmer’s wife) she greets every customer with a cheeky grin as they walk in. This seemed to be especially applicable to my wife and I when we first dined there.

Bambi greeted us as if she knew we had just moved here. Excited, even. The fat lesbians from down the street! She sat us down and asked all kinds of questions: “Welcome on in! Have you been here before? Are you ladies new to town?” I paused for a moment, (remembering I hadn’t shaved my face and must look very trans right?) and my wife took the lead, “yes, we’re new!” Bambi explained the buffet and retrieved our icy, crispy beverages. She made small talk throughout our meal, often referring to us as “ladies.”

At one point, I made an attempt to correct Bambi, stating that I actually use they/them pronouns. Bambi either did not hear me (likely not her fault, I am extremely soft spoken), or she let that correction glide right on over her head. My wife chimed in, “Jay is trans, they use they/them pronouns. Not a lady.” Bambi acknowledged that she heard Corissa with an enthusiastic “Oh okay!” and proceeded to ask about refilling our Cokes. Upon paying for the bill, Bambi waved and said “y’all ladies come back now anytime.” We smiled and joked about it in the car afterward.

The thing is, that kind of denial of my identity, the assumption of my gender and the blatant disregard for my pronouns, used to really upset me. Sometimes it still does, honestly. I grew up in a place where not only did they understand gender neutral language, it was sort of seen as the respectful thing to do for service industry workers to ditch the gendered honorifics and greetings. I kept thinking to myself in Kansas, how can they not see that I’m clearly not going for “woman” here?

There’s a lot to be unpacked there. What does “a woman” look like? Who decides what traits are feminine or masculine? Does it even really feel better to me to be lumped in with the men folk? Perhaps it’s too much to impose on other people that they might be in touch with queer and trans culture and understand how to appropriately engage with it.

Because when I zoom out and look at the bigger picture, note where I am in the country, acknowledge the backward and hateful information they are receiving all around us here I think, this is actually really beautiful; it’s kindness. Underneath the bullshit and my ego’s desire to be fully seen at all times, there’s a sweet intention there. Inclusion. Sure, Bambi is a little behind the times when it comes to gender 101. But is that her fault? Her goal was to welcome us into the community. She was being brave. Making it a point to be seen with us.

I think growing up in New England really warped my sense of reality when it comes to progress with trans rights. Sure, the coasts might be doing things like implementing curriculum with non-gendered language and encouraging the use of single-stall gender neutral bathrooms in schools. But so much of the country in middle America is far, far behind. We are isolated, spread out by many miles of corn and soy fields, cattle and farmland, and exhausted resources that slow down the dissemination of information.

That’s the thing, this type of kindness shown to us as rural queers is not to be overlooked. Given the environment and the insidious ways that the local governments are promoting christian nationalist propaganda, it actually means something very powerful to be kind in this way. It means, I see you. I don’t quite understand you but I see and accept you. I’m happy to be seen with you. And that feels absolutely vital to queer survival in rural America. It feels absolutely vital to me.

When we invite a loved one into our lives, we don’t always know just what we’ll love about them. We don’t understand what they’ll mean to us, just that they’ll mean something big. They might represent connection, stability, and security. They might feel like they’ve cured us of something. And the threat of losing both their spirit and what they’ve come to represent can feel too heavy to consider. While they’re alive.

Read more

I have never once asked what your genitals look like

The size, the shape, the feel.

Read more

I knew from a very young age that I wanted to work in the mental health field. It seems like a strange thing to imagine as an adult, baby Jay yearning to study psychology so they can sit in the therapist’s chair for once. I could go into all of the painful details, but this blog post would be more like a chapter out of my memoir in that case. Essentially, my childhood and upbringing involved having a family member with a debilitating mental illness, bouts of foster care, group and individual therapy, and far too much familiarity with the psychiatric unit than one could wish for a child.

Having been a mental health proxy by the time I turned 18, I already had experience with social work in many forms. Of course, this was always from the client/recipient perspective. Shelters, food banks, resource centers, libraries, clinical support, and advocates. Guidance counselors, advisors and crisis responders; they’re all social workers. I learned how to survive in an unjust world from them. I have so much gratitude for their work and impact on my life. These experiences, both the traumatic and the support, shaped how I view the world and the kind of helping professions that I believe in.

Read more

Being a super-fat person often comes with a lot of challenges, given the inaccessible society we’re living in. Seating is not made for us. Clothing is not made for us. Hell, even science is not exactly made for us. I spend quite a lot of time discussing the intricacies of experiencing anti-fatness in my regular boring ass daily life. On the internet, with my friends and family, etc. The ostracization of fat people impacts me regularly, and I believe it’s important to share this experience in hopes for change.

But this post is not quite about the difficulties of existing in a super-fat body. Rather, it’s about an unexpected beauty I’ve found in having these challenges I face with mobility and accessibility on a deeply personal level.

Sex. I’m talking about sex.

Read more

There is no surprise that the last 5 years have been historically devastating. With the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the globe and an administration in power that refuses to participate in caring for its people, our response as a society has been on the reclusive side. Naturally, I think we’ve become more hesitant to trust our surroundings, unsure of who is practicing safe exposure to viruses like that of COVID (and MAGA rhetoric, honestly). I’m nothing if not an observer, and I’ve observed quite a shift in our narrative around “community” lately.

In my neck of the woods, the folks I surround myself with are committed to working through our defenses in creating community. We’re looking for ways to heal the damage done to our central nervous systems over the years and refocus on putting our hands to work in practical ways in our own neighborhoods. In response, I’ve heard this phrase bubble up in my circles when discussing pushing through these reclusive and skeptical habits. “The price of community is inconvenience.” Meaning, getting to know people and supporting our community will require loosening the reins a little on our propensity to convenience. This phrase has become extremely important to me and my healing.

I replay this quote in my head almost daily. I’m working through agoraphobic tendencies that have really only increased as our political and social climate has been thrust abruptly further to the far-right. As someone who grew up in Massachusetts, where the rainbow flags soared high outside business spots and gun control was extremely strict, my rural Kansas community does scare me sometimes. “They hate that I’m trans. Everyone is carrying, what if they shoot me” my anxious thoughts refuse to quiet. I’ll admit, I’m not sure where the line sits for pushing through discomfort when worrying about being the target of a hate crime. But I also know that hiding myself away in my comfortable bubble is not going to create any positive change in my community either.

But this idea of community costing us some inconvenience and perhaps a little discomfort is not just applicable to my queer and trans community. Over the course of my life, I’ve witnessed a very disturbing reality in how we treat our mentally ill. It feels like even in our left-leaning environments, we tiptoe around how we interact with those experiencing mental health crises.

Read more

I believed Black folks when they told us the violent policing would not end. I believed disabled people who begged for us to listen while our government denied them livable benefits. Still, I’m ashamed to say that for many years, I’ve put my head down and kept quiet in hopes that I could skate by unscathed.

And this makes me wonder, what does getting by unscathed look like? What kind of outcome am I hoping for for myself? What does being safe actually look like?

I imagine a post-US empire world. One where grassroots organizers are free to create solutions for their own communities. A place where the land is honored, not taken advantage of. A society motivated by equity and harmony, rather than capitalism and power. People gather, barter, share, and commune. Resources are allotted with love and care instead of gate-kept for profit. Can this world be possible?

I think about the cost to get us there. The people who involuntarily sacrificed for the potential of this epic regeneration. Black communities priced out of their neighborhoods, forced into homelessness; neighborhoods relying on contaminated drinking water. Brown people separated from their families and locked in cages. Deportations, incarceration, modern slavery. Genocide. Cultures around the world fight decimation by my leader’s hands.

Am I safe here?

I’ve got a close eye on the movement to villainize transgender people. I couldn’t escape the headlines even if I tried. Debates on hormonal advantages in sports, fearmongering of drag shows and performers, labeling us rapists and pedophiles. Kansas made national news when the state revoked driver’s licenses of trans folks overnight who had updated their gender markers. We are being targeted, dehumanized, vilified, abused, and excluded from society. And it’s not lost on me that there are some state governments who attempt to provide a safe haven within their borders for marginalized folks. As someone who grew up in Massachusetts and moved to Kansas in my late 20’s, I’ve seen what that disparity looks like.

Am I safe here?

It’s hard not to scream when asked this question. “Are you safe there?” Am I safe here? I can’t even begin to know how to answer. I understand the sentiment; you love me. You’ve read the headlines and fear for my safety as you see the walls closing in on me. I’m scared too. I have to ask, are you safe there? Do the Californian borders keep out bigotry? Have the police been abolished on the East Coast? Are power hungry politicians being run out of progressive states? Are your children truly safe from gun violence in their schools?

It is a false sense of security to believe location alone will protect us from fascism. Hell, even oceans can’t keep the greedy, grimy, colonizers at bay. In the US, one state may tout protection of queer and trans folks, but this does not mean one won’t feel their oppression in other facets of their lives. Sure, you can keep your driver’s license! But can you afford rent? Are you Black or brown or an immigrant? You will likely still fear for your life as ICE invades even the gayest of regions of your state. And if not you, someone you know and love will experience this.

Believing you are free from fascism while so many minorities are tortured and oppressed in this country is selfishly protective at best and a cancer to our liberation at worst. Who am I to hide behind my privilege in a world built on the dehumanization of people like me? Of people unlike me? I’m not sure how anyone could feel safe while the walls are closing in on them like this. We’re trained to believe that these walls closing in on us can be halted, as long as we point the finger at someone more of an “outlaw” than ourselves. That is not the kind of humanity I believe in. I can’t see us creating the world I dream of with that kind of behavior.

What happens when the fascist state expands the laws of disobedience? Trans people are being categorized as heathenous. Non-compliant. We are disobedient for not conforming to the gender binary in our expression of ourselves. We choose to wear clothes from the “opposite side” of the aisle, mixing and matching with pieces that affirm our unique and creative styles. Our gender presentation is intentional and evokes a queering of the binary that fascism cannot control. We are a threat to obedience.

Am I safe here?

White cisgender women: do you enjoy the privilege of choosing what you wear? Do you like having the option of wearing pants? I worry you may want to prepare to have that privilege revoked. A “woman’s right to choose” was never just about reproductive rights. Fascism is sustained through cisheteropatriarchy and misogyny. The state may be enforcing “gender appropriate” attire laws sooner than you think. Which will be representative of your loss of autonomy as a whole.

In fact, it’s already begun. Given that in Kansas, trans folks are now required to use the bathroom that aligns with their sex assigned at birth in state owned buildings, what does this mean for how we choose to dress out in the world? We are being forced to assess and consider adjusting our gender presentation to minimize risk of harm simply when using a public restroom.

How anyone could ignore the very real and visceral clouds of dictatorship and conformity encroaching over our communities day by day is beyond my comprehension. Am I safe here? The answer is no. You’re not safe here either. Or there. Because how can anyone feel safe when fascists come for our neighbors? That’s not safety, that’s denial.

Violent ICE agents are targeting, abducting, and terrorizing our immigrant communities. Families are afraid to leave their homes for fear of arrest, deportation, or being murdered. So while my fear and lack of safety are not equivalent to that of immigrant persons in this country, I can see how our liberation is intertwined.

Authoritarianism does not just win over the general public suddenly; it’s a multifaceted tiered tactic of control that slowly boils you to death. You can’t see it coming because you are too distracted by trying to follow the rules as they get tighter and more restraining. If communities are ringing the alarms that something is wrong it is our obligation to listen.

My oppression does not have to look exactly like yours for it to all count. None of us is free until we are all free.

Share trans in kansas

Share trans in kansas