In the midst of the #MeToo movement (which Trump bizarrely dubbed “a very special time” for women), we are seeing two types of men emerge: “guilty,” or “innocent.” (The quotations are there because I have a tiny amount of skepticism with a few people on each side, as much as I hate to admit that). I can’t wrap my head around why the movement finally sprouted wings when Hollywood superstar Alyssa Milano took it to Twitter. Though most people had no idea, #MeToo was originally started over ten years ago by black social activist, Tarana Burke. Regardless, it is now like nothing our generation has ever seen before. Milano had merely hoped to give a sense of the magnitude of the problem, if only every woman who’d ever been sexually harassed or assaulted wrote #MeToo as their status. Burke wanted something more than a viral trend, but was happy to see the cause finally getting the attention it deserved. Continue reading
Category: Media
One Year Under A Trump Presidency
One year ago last night in the mountains of NC, on a mini vacation we’d been hoping to make for years, my husband and I sat at our cozy dinner, in silence. Above the small, roaring fireplace next to our table was a big screen TV, monitoring the 2016 election results as they rolled in. State after state turned red and projected Donald Trump as the potential winner. I looked around, contemplating asking for another table, but TVs were everywhere, and they were all broadcasting the same thing. Five years of anticipation and planning for our 3rd, private, without kids getaway in 17 years of marriage had led up to this moment, and I felt disgusted. Continue reading
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Today’s Bizarre White House Press Briefing, Annotated
Today’s White House press briefing opened with Sarah Huckabee Sanders reading another reverent letter from a kid to Trump (which always sound more like something written by a Trump staffer than a kid), and things just went downhill from there.
Seven-year-old MacKenzie, of Dalton, Georgia was today’s enthusiastic Trump supporter. “I think you’re awesome,” she wrote, “in fact, I voted for you in my school election.” Continue reading
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The Credit Belongs To The Man In The Arena
Recently, Scary Mommy ran one of my stories on raising a TGNC, non-binary child. They changed the title and added a stock photo, as often happens in the hands of editors. For a few days, my piece had top billing and was prominently featured on the front pages of both their LGBT section, and LGBT Kids section – something I want to commend Scary Mommy for, because when they first published a piece of mine a while ago, there was no LGBT Kids section (at least not to my knowledge). So, major points for that addition – something that was needed for a long time, since we now know the “T’ part of LGBT includes children. It’s hard to keep up with the fast-moving research on this, but currently, it shows that for the most part, all children Continue reading
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She’s A Republican And I Support Her, Because This Was Never About Politics
Republished at HuffPost
Ana Navarro is a Republican strategist. Though she’s no stranger to political commentary on the news, she’s one of a a few handfuls of bold voices in the media who are willing to speak truth to power right now, regardless of potential consequences. Navarro voicing her dislike of Trump is nothing new, but the clip of her talking with Wolf Blitzer, where she accurately describes Trump and his Twitter Tantrums, was exactly what everyone in America was thinking that day when Trump’s latest Twitter diversion pulled attention from the actual newsworthy events of the day.
On June 29th we should’ve been Continue reading
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Are Trans Women Really Women? Why Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Answer Matters
Ah, semantics. If ever there was a case for the importance of words and their intended, assumed, or literal meanings, it is this story. In case you haven’t yet heard, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a world-renowned, award-winning Nigerian author and feminist, was recently interviewed by Cathy Newman for the UK’s Channel 4 News and asked if she thought trans women were really women. Specifically, Ms. Newman asked, “…does it matter how you’ve arrived at being a woman – I mean, for example, if you’re a trans woman who grew up identifying as a man, who grew up enjoying the privileges of being a man, does that take away from becoming a woman? Are you any less of a real woman?” In short, Adichie’s answer was, “My feeling is trans women are trans women.”
Notice she didn’t say, “trans women are women.” (If you want to hear just the quote in question, skip to approx. the 2:44 mark).
Adichie went on to explain how if you’ve lived Continue reading
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Misogyny: Do Americans Really Hate Women?
About two years ago, Target stores decided to make a radical, positive change in the way they marketed their toys, home, and entertainment departments. A news release announced they were “ditching” gender labels. They were going to accomplish this by doing away with gender suggestions on signs, as those seemed to be antiquated relics in a society that is ever growing upwards in its quest to understand, empathize with, and embrace the non-binary construct of gender. Continue reading
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Birthday Blues and a Review
On Tuesday, Charlie turned 11. This should’ve been a joyful day, but I could tell something was wrong when he got up. He seemed distant. We went to school and went on with our days. Matt came for Charlie’s lunch at school and we all sat together with a good friend that Charlie picked. Matt brought McDonald’s and cupcakes with neon colored frosting. When it was time to pass out cupcakes, Charlie and his friend gave one to everybody in the class, but Charlie did not want one. Very strange. They took the rest of them upstairs to share with the teachers. We hugged goodbye and I Continue reading
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Make America Great Again: The Trouble With Rose Tinted Glasses
Some people are really good at remembering history accurately, with all of its scars and ugliness. Take middle school, for example. Most of us remember it well enough to know that we wouldn’t care to revisit that part of our lives ever again.
Some people are not so good at remembering the ugliness. Instead, some people are really good at romanticizing the past. This psychological phenomenon is a cognitive bias sometimes referred to as “rosy retrospection.” And actually, more of us than not are Continue reading
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To David Bowie, on the One-Year Anniversary of Your Death
David Bowie in Labyrinth (photo: Getty)
Republished at The Huffington Post
One year ago yesterday the world lost David Bowie, in the beginning of what was to be the dumpster fire we called 2016.
As a child of the ‘70s, I listened to my older sister’s old school David Bowie records. I grew up in love with the movie Labyrinth, and helped instill a similar appreciation of the movie among all three of my kids when they were not yet four years old. Ok, maybe “appreciation” is a bit of a stretch. Maybe it was because
Gender Creative Life 