My heart sank as I read this.  I understand the writer is Arabic -- though I'm not sure exactly where.

Traveling While Transgender

I recently asked a select group of my Face Book friends for help with makeup.  I’m very encouraged by the positive response I received – thanks everyone!

YouTube makeup tutorials were of course among the many suggestions.  Internet makeup tutorials are nothing new, of course, and I do feel they have some communicative as well as instructional benefits to some in transgender community, especially those who, for any number of reasons – social geography perhaps – do not have access to positive reinforcing social environments.  Central Illinois, as in my case, just doesn’t have near as much transgender-positive spaces as perhaps you would find in Seattle, San Francisco, or New York City.

Makeup tutorials, informative as they may be, fail to create any additional positive spaces.  Central Illinois isn’t changing because of makeup tutorial videos.  What needs to change is people’s attitudes – transforming spaces – retail stores, salon and beauty shops, restaurants – all socially public places – into somewhere...

Making an appointment to get your hair done – nothing difficult about that, right?  Now try explaining that you don’t have the first clue what you’re doing because…  That’s the hard part.  I don’t want to say “because I’m a guy” – if I want to have my hair or makeup done then I’m choosing to express myself outside of the bounds of “I’m a guy/I’m not a guy”.  Maybe it’s the social conservativeness of Central Illinois, maybe it’s my own lack of self-confidence, maybe it’s something else.  But somehow something as simple as seeking beauty services just exploded into my self-identity. 

I do realize that it doesn’t have to be this hard – so maybe it is me.  I’m a human being, I have the right to seek services just like anybody else.  Illinois laws offer some legal protection and equality in some cases – but I don’t want to be the one to test or even need legal protection. 

I’m not entirely closeted – so I do have a decent amount of experience in matters like this.  I don’t have any qualms about going...

This makes it that much harder for me to sit on the couch with my wife and watch the Duggar clan.  It was always an exercise in voyeurism, as a lot of TV is -- which is perhaps one reason I don't watch that much TV to begin with.

I of course realized early on that Jim Bob Duggar's views, politically and socially, were conservative.  But why does he feel the need to publicly voice his transgender-negative views on this top, which, the best I can tell, doesn't involve him directly.  The transgender girl in question lives in Colorado, not his home of Arkansas.  Plenty of individual Girl Scout troops across the country are weighing in on the issue -- so the conversation is being had.  The fact that Mr. Duggar is campaigning with Rick Santorum, a politician who's stated that he would forcibly annul gay marriages.

I guess I'll have insist on Sister Wive's instead.  While Kody Brown and family have their own conservatives views, at least they are willing to let others live their life how they choose.

...

Let me state this up front – I have decided to use the term transgender in my writing and work, though I really prefer “gender variant”.  Maybe better yet would be “gender free”, or some other great term that says “I reject the notion that there exists two boxes, and that I must fit into one of them.”  Transgender seems to be the term used by mainstream media (stories of Chaz Bono and Girl Scout troops all carry this label) – and it’s a term that I’m okay with.  An “umbrella” term, if you will, that hopefully lends itself more to inclusion than exclusion. 

A few years ago, I attended an LGBT training for social service providers.  My very wonderful and supportive wife was already planning to attend, as she works in the social service field.  Since it was free and open to the public, I decided to go with her and make it a date.

Living in socially conservative Central Illinois, I was very excited about this training.  What we need most, out here in the cornfield, is exposure.  I’ve encountered many...