The Credit Belongs To The Man In The Arena

July 10, 2017September 16, 20173 Comments

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 →

Misogyny: Do Americans Really Hate Women?

March 25, 2017September 25, 20177 Comments

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 →

Trans & Gender Non-Conforming Kids, Don’t Give Up. We’ve Got Your Back. So Do Many States.

March 13, 2017March 13, 2017Leave a comment

Make America Great Again: The Trouble With Rose Tinted Glasses

January 27, 2017February 25, 20171 Comment

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 →

Dear America, It Gets Better. Love, North Carolina

January 22, 2017February 25, 20171 Comment

Republished at The Huffington Post

Dear America,

We know. Catching clips of that inaugural address was painful. You tried to erase the doom-and-gloom “American carnage” idea on which Trump waxed poetically, only to see the clips of his CIA press conference the next day quickly melt down into: “How ’bout my speech, huh? Did you like my speech?! How ’bout my numbers?! ME, ME, ME! LOOK AT ME!”

But then news started pouring in regarding Continue reading →

‘Gender Creative’ is Not the New ‘Hipster’

January 2, 2017January 9, 20174 Comments

Republished at The Huffington Post

They’re everywhere. Gender non-conforming, gender diverse, gender variant people. From cisgender men wearing “man buns” to cisgender women dressing “dapper,” gender ambiguity seems to be the hipster thing now – especially among the Hollywood elite. Hipster culture via gender expression may have been living outwardly on the fringe for quite some time, but it wasn’t until about 2013 or so when gorgeous cis, hetero men my age like Jared Leto and Joaquin Phoenix became one with the love-it-or-hate-it “man bun” hairdo. Continue reading →

Dear White People, Let’s Talk About Combating Racism

December 11, 2016January 8, 2017Leave a comment

Republished at The Huffington Post

Dear White People,

I’ve debated for a while whether or not to even write what I’ve learned so far on racism, out of fear of taking up space in the racial justice movement when that space could’ve been better occupied by a person of color who actually lives the experience and is way better versed than someone like me. I don’t want to just be another white ally putting herself in the spotlight.

But the fact of the matter is I am a white person, I am a writer and educator, I have a small audience, and my white privilege was the major catalyst that has gotten me to this place. So that’s where I’m writing from – that place of privilege that has afforded me opportunities that other people don’t have, like being a contributor for Huffington Post, The Good Men Project, Spoke/Red Tricycle, and Scary Mommy, to name a few. Make no mistake, people of color have been fighting to be heard for a long time. The experiences leading up to my getting published were because of white privilege, but my success in getting published happened overnight because Continue reading →

Fishing in a Sea of Grief

November 30, 2016December 17, 20162 Comments

A version of this was republished at The Huffington Post under the title: How I Chased My Gender Creative Child’s Bullies Away

I know there are people who don’t understand why, or don’t agree with the fact that my family is out & proud, advocating publicly for our youngest, gender creative child. That’s okay. They don’t need to understand or agree with us because it’s our family, and it’s what’s right for us, right now. But we know there are people who don’t understand (though they might, if they cared to simply ask us). And we know there are people who disagree (though they’re judging only what they can see on the surface, and are all too happy to tell us).

There could be many reasons. Maybe they don’t know that my son Charlie encouraged me to write more publicly about him, something beyond my little blog with 2 subscribers. I’d been keeping journals my entire life. I always loved writing, and called it my brain-purging; my therapy. My youngest child actually wanted his story told. Before I ever went public, he heard Continue reading →

Let’s Not Confuse Political Correctness With Basic Human Decency

November 18, 2016November 26, 20161 Comment

image via Buzzfeed, from the Duke University “You Don’t Say” Campaign

I often wonder what people really mean when they long for the days of not having to be politically correct. “I’m about to say some things that are not PC,” they might warn. Or, “Whoops, better be careful; someone might call the PC police.” Sometimes we hear it following the discrimination of marginalized groups who speak up when their people are dehumanized. In response to their concerns, we often hear, “Oh, they’re just trying to be politically correct.” Or, “I’m so sick of all this PC nonsense. It’s ruining our country.”

I’m beginning to realize that part of the problem in our country right now is a whole lot of people are mistakenly confusing “political correctness” with “basic human decency.” Continue reading →