Welcome message from founder
I built this site out of necessity. And I'm glad you've stumbled upon it! Welcome to the safe space for all transgender and gender non-binary folks who love to read and/ or write.
By way of introduction. I have strong interests in journalism and law. I wouldn't choose one over the other. In the spring of 2021, I interned with FreeState Justice, an organization providing direct legal services to low-income LGBTQ+ Marylanders and pushing for long-term changes in policies and laws that help improve and protect LGBTQ+ lives. Some things I did there entailed both understanding legal issues facing the LGBTQ+ community and putting a human face to the issues by writing about those impacted by them.
Consequently, I had the privilege of interviewing the parent of a transgender student who was denied access to bathroom and locker room that align with his gender identity. My email to the parent prior to getting an interview scheduled reads like this:
"I'm an intern with FSJ, and I'm in receipt of your email, forwarded by my supervisor, about your son's case, for which FSJ provided legal services. To give you some background about me, I am a trans masculine person, and not surprisingly, have personally experienced injustice on many levels."
"I'm sorry that your son had to go through what he went through at his young age, and I feel relieved that things got resolved. I'm reaching out to you to schedule a Zoom interview so that I could write a blog post for FSJ."
Long story short, I was a journalism major many years ago. One of the main points I took away from the required ethics course is that to never treat your story sources and subjects—those you interview and write about—as if they don't matter and to never use a subject or topic you report on just to advance your career, without giving a damn about them. Had I not told that parent that I was trans, and by doing so, had I not given them assurance that I would not ask intrusive or insensitive question (our gender-variant community knows what those are) about him that were not directly related to the issue, I don't think this parent of the trans kid would have opened up as much as they did during that interview.
Compassion, as I've learned from doing the work in the real world, is basic etiquette for any journalist having to talk to people who have been victimized or experienced injustice. When it comes to trans issues, cisgender journalists suck at it. Some of these journalists are the same ones responsible for having lost the public's trust in the mainstream news media over the past few decades. One other ethical standard, as I recall, is to not cause additional harm to already marginalized communities.
In my News Reporting course, the instructor talked about a true story of the consequences caused by a young male student intern at a newspaper who identified a rape survivor by her name (and HER ADDRESS, too) in a news story he wrote, sourcing the details from the police incident report. Somehow, this personal information escaped the editor's eyes—or perhaps the editor was indifferent because the issue didn't affect him directly. The story appeared in the paper the next morning, and then the rapist went back to the woman's house and raped her again.
Many news outlets, not all, for more than a decade adopted a strict policy of not naming sexual assault victims in their reporting, especially minors. News outlets, in most cases, wouldn't print the names of minors accused of a crime. Well, in 2020, The New York Times, among several outlets, printed Aimee Stephens deadname in her obituary. Later that year, outlets like NBC News included Eliot Page's former name in their headlines and photo captions, as if his face changed overnight. Several news outlets have been getting away with deadnaming murdered trans people who can no longer speak for themselves. My instructor for that course, who also worked as a reporter, reminded her students that, "Just because you have the power to obtain information doesn't mean you should always publish it," reiterating how unnecessary information can re-victimize and re-traumatize someone already harmed.
Sadly, the media's insinuating that we're not who we know ourselves to be and that they know better about our lived reality than we do by deadnaming us and using our incorrect pronouns are just the tip of the iceberg. The media's transphobia runs deep beneath the surface. More importantly, people who don't personally know a trans person read, watch and listen to what the news and entertainment outlets assert about trans people and make their misinformed assumptions about all trans people based on what they hear about a few in the news and based on the trans characters played by cisgender actors in the movies.
One of the reasons why I conceptualized TRANS is that my own experience on the other side of the table with some members of the press was disheartening at best and retriggering and retraumatizing at worst. In 2020, I overcame homelessness and transgender housing discrimination in Washington, DC and after 29 months of having to live in a congregate homeless. I enrolled at Georgetown University, with the tuition and housing paid by six scholarships I won. A news writer from The Washington Post interviewed me by saying they wanted to do a "positive story." The next day, they emailed me and said their editor wanted to focus on the abuse and harassment trans people endure in homeless shelters. I said that kind of sensationalized victim narratives are redundant and that's a perfect way to get more transphobes to read the paper because they love details of how we suffer.
I refused to let The Post use only the suffering part of my story as part of their click bait money-making trick. The homeless services charities paid by the DC Government already profited off my stay in the shelter. The Washington Blade, a so called LGBTQ newspaper, ignored my press releases while they glamorized Ruby Corado, now-disgraced trans housing advocate who pocketed funds given for the cause. Now the solution part of my story— taking legal action against those who violated my equal housing right and rising above the obstacles to embark on a path to law profession is mine to tell in a memoir. Meanwhile, through TRANS, I give voice to other people.
We need a space of our own. Most of us need to heal from traumas that we didn't cause ourselves. For me, writing is one of the things I do that I find therapeutic. I look forward to reading your pitches and then finished pieces you submit! I encourage you to fill out this form.
You could also stay in the know by subscribing to our email newsletter (we're planning to send out monthly digests) and following TRANS on Facebook @TransNarrativesMatter. If you have any question. comment, suggestion or feedback, feel free to reach out to me by using the contact form at the bottom of the Healing page.
Some of my recent writings:
then my life changed for the better I April 30, 2021
Téa Ivanovic: Reporting on Issues Short of Coverage, Reaching Wide Public I Public Writing coursework I Mar 3, 2021
Story of the U.S. Media They May Not Want Told I A Post-Truth World coursework I Dec. 16, 2020
‘There’s No Alfredo Sauce’: Cultural Cooking Club Founded During Pandemic Thrives I The Hoya I Oct. 8 2020
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