Tag: gender

Maine’s Trans Books

Happy Pride Month! Several years ago, I made an observation… my home state of Maine has produced a fairly high number of books by, about, or connected to Trans people. I thought I’d gather those I know about here.

  • Jennifer Finney Boylan
    Jennifer is a former professor at Colby College here in Waterville, Maine. She’s best known for her book She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders, which documented her transition. I’ve also attended a few readings of the book and was able to meet her on at least one of those occasions.
  • Nicole Maines
    Nicole first came to the public’s attention by fighting discriminatory practices at her school outside of Bangor, Maine. The incidents resulted in a several legal cases as well as her family relocating to Portland, Maine. She went onto star as Dreamer in the TV series Supergirl and the independent vampire movie Bit. I met her in passing at a past Portland Pride event.
  • Imogen Binnie
    I can’t recommend this book, and its very stream-of-conscience writing, enough. It’s clearly semi-autobiographical – the lead character is Trans and works in a bookshop (much like the author). Though I’d seen her band, Correspondences, a few times, I met her briefly when she was working a local bookshop.

    From the Amazon page for the recently republished version of the book:
    • `One of Vogue‘s Best Books of 2022 So Far
    • Buzzfeed‘s Summer Books You Won’t Be Able To Put Down
    • Book Riot‘s Best Summer Reads for 2022
    • Dazed‘s Queer Books to Read in 2022
  • Janet Mock
    Janet isn’t from Maine, but the state gets a shout early on in the book. Her boyfriend at the time grew up in Cumberland, Maine.

So, did I miss amy others?

Hair

After two years of growing out my hair, I finally got it cut.

I’d been lazy about cutting it for a few extra weeks and discovered it was more curly than expected.  Upon realizing this I decided to see what it would look like longer.  Two years and almost twelve inches wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I started, but it was a fun experiment.

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2003: An earlier attempt at long hair

For this round of hair growth I’d discovered a high school friend and his wife had grown out their hair for donation.  He too had lost family to cancer (for him it was his sister, for me it was my father) and seeing their photo sparked the idea to do the same.

As I near 40, I’m starting to see more and more friends and acquaintances impacted by cancer and chemo – people all younger than me.  Whether it’s aplastic anemia, stage 2 Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, successfully fighting tumors for seven years, or, in one case, not winning the battle, it just felt like the right thing to do.  The hair will be going to a program run by Pantene for women with cancer.

It turned out to be a bigger commitment than I realized.  I can’t say my wife was a fan.  While she was supportive of the idea of donation, having a husband with curly footlong hair was not anticipated.  I remember a specific conversation just before we started dating nine years ago about her disdain for men and long hair.

Beyond that, there were some logistical issues as well.  With a newborn in the house, I quickly discovered long hair gets pulled and straight into his mouth.

My wife and daughter similarly have long hair.  Our floors started looking like tumbleweeds blowing through the desert.  It was constantly getting caught in my laptop bag strap.

Then there were the looks.  I found people either didn’t care or were very intrigued by my hair.  A woman walked up to me at an event and told me I had “beautiful curly hair.”  In a hardware store it was more of a “what’s up with this person?” sort of look.

While I don’t think I’ll ever get the support to do it again, I at least now know what it’s like to have significantly longer hair.  I may sneak an inch or two extra from where it is today, but it’s doubtful you’ll see me with hair past my shoulders again anytime soon.

Transgender Day of Remembrance

Although I’m posting this as the day draws to close for me, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention today is Transgender Day of Remembrance.  I’ve wanted to write about this topic for a long while and Transgender Awareness Week is as good a time as any.

Continue reading Transgender Day of Remembrance