Yet another way that the myth of a singular “female socialization” fails. — For girls of many cultures & class backgrounds, “female socialization” means being expected to be strong, self-sufficient, and resiliently womanly. Before I transitioned, I spent two or three years wearing nothing but dresses. I favored silky sheaths and kicky, brightly patterned skater dresses with open, flouncy skirts. I wore them over bicycle shorts or leggings with low-cut tennis shoes, but they were still quite impractical for any kind of strenuous…

Autistic Advice #11: Research shows most people dislike Autistics within moments of meeting them. Is there any hope of us finding connection? — Welcome back to Autistic Advice, a semi-regular advice column where I respond to reader questions about neurodiversity, accessibility, disability justice, and self-advocacy from my perspective as an Autistic psychologist. You can submit questions or suggest future entries in the series via my Tumblr ask box, linked here.

Emerging research suggests they’re one and the same. — Since undergoing top surgery, I’ve become far more attuned to my body. I find it easy and natural to pull my chest upward toward the sky, expanding my upper torso and relieving the pressure on my back. With one heavy sigh I can drop my shoulders toward the floor, releasing…

Autistic Advice #10 — Welcome back to Autistic Advice, a semi-regular advice column where I respond to reader questions about neurodiversity, accessibility, disability justice, and self-advocacy from my perspective as an Autistic psychologist. You can submit questions or suggest future entries in the series via my Tumblr ask box, linked here. Today’s question comes…

Thanks Sieran for tackling a fraught topic that always provokes a lot of strong reactions from cis and trans people alike, but which rarely gets the nuanced, compassionate treatment that it deserves. Before I came out, I was at a party with a cis gay acquaintance (let's call him Allan)…

A need for freedom & healthy suspicion of authority has protected me, not hurt me. — It’s the summer of my first year in graduate school and I’m standing in a small office on Northwestern’s campus. I’m there for a job interview, for some short-term research assistant position, and my sweaty body’s at ease in a stretchy cotton skirt and loose blouse. …

Part 2: My time in the OR and the first week post-op. — On June 1st, 2023, I received a double-incision, bilateral mastectomy with no nipple grafts from Dr. Lawrence Iteld, a private plastic surgeon, at the 900 N. Michigan Surgical Center here in Chicago, Illinois. In my last entry in this series, I explained what motivated my choice to undergo gender affirming…

Part 1: Why it took me so damn long to just let myself live. Plus: why are plastic surgeons better at gender affirming care than queer clinics? — Hello! By the time this piece drops on the afternoon of June 1st, I will have already undergone bilateral, double-incision top surgery in the early morning hours and will hopefully be recovering comfortably at home. While I’m away from my keyboard, let me tell you a little bit about what…

Porn isn’t frivolous or dangerous. It’s essential to understanding art, history, and human liberation. — As of May 15th, image sharing platform Imgur will be purging its site of all not-safe-for-work and anonymously posted content. As part of the site’s new terms of service agreement, Imgur’s definition of “not safe for work” is concerningly broad: it will be removing not only every upload deemed to…