Profile

This is a companion journal to itsyourears. I'm a British transgender man and a professional writer, and this blog is dedicated to providing an intelligent and thoughtful trans perspective on the way everyone else thinks about, reacts to and interacts with trans people. I'm aiming it at the thinking person who wants to understand more.

Here's what this blog is not about:

• It's not about explaining basic terminology or concepts. Please see any of the various (http://transequality.org/Resources/NCTE_TransTerminology.pdf) useful (http://www.genderpsychology.org/transsexual/glossary.html) glossaries (http://www.glaad.org/page.aspx?pid=376) that are available on the web. Everyone who ever gets into debates online should also read the marvellously witty Derailing for Dummies (http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBYQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.derailingfordummies.com%2F&rct=j&q=privilege%20for%20dummies&ei=pXAwTcPIM5HQjAfMjc3jCg&usg=AFQjCNFmoWou4Nyuvs6A_fiMGk_VlyC5kA&cad=rja).
  
• It's not about feminist theory - at least not other than tangentially - or about framing the discussion in terms of "privilege", "discourses" and other academic jargon. Valuable as these concepts are, there is a great deal of trans activism material already available that uses them. The audience I'm trying to reach is the intelligent layman, for whom there is far less material about. I am also neither an academic nor a gender studies graduate; the most valuable comments I can make about academic theories are on how the concepts and theories feminist academia has given the world play out for the individual trans person on the ground.

I started this blog because I saw the way people around me would panic when they realised that I was trans. Friends panicked; employers panicked; government institutions came to a grinding halt. Even highly intelligent, well-educated, liberal people are at a loss when faced with someone like me; and if I have a purpose on this earth, it's to communicate. To put things into words. If I can use that talent to demystify transness and make the world easier for one single other trans person, then I'm doing something right, and that's my intention in this space.