A few days ago (on Christmas, in fact), The Telegraph ran a piece with the provocative title: “Lesbians facing ‘extinction’ as transgenderism becomes pervasive, campaigners warn.” The premise — which has been increasingly touted by anti-trans groups over the last few years — is that nowadays, young kids who are “really lesbian” are instead coming out as transgender and transitioning to male, thereby decimating the lesbian population.
This assertion bears resemblance to another claim favored by these same groups, namely, that when children and teens are allowed to socially transition, it’s actually a form of “gay conversion therapy.” According to this argument, sans transition these kids would have grown up to be gay men and lesbian women, but now they will instead turn out to be “straight” (i.e., …
The following is an excerpt from my debut novel, 99 Erics: a Kat Cataclysm faux novel — a silly, surreal, sex-positive tale about a bisexual female absurdist short fiction writer who dates ninety-nine different people named Eric for literature’s sake. By day, Kat pens listicles for a BuzzFeed-like tech company called CliqueClick. In this chapter, she shares her thoughts (and mine) about writing tips . . .
Back in “the good ol’ days” — which, by most accounts, were actually quite horrific for large swaths of the population — there were just a few basic holidays: the big religious ones like Christmas and Easter (which conveniently happen to fall right around previously existing pagan celebrations) and the big national holidays such as Thanksgiving, 4th of July, and such. Over time, additional days were set aside to memorialize various people and movements: Presidents Day, Veterans Day, Labor Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and so on. But in recent years, things have got completely out of hand. …
The virtual book tour is over now. But all the readings have been archived on YouTube & Facebook, so you can watch them there! (see below for specific links)…
For those who don’t know me, I’m an author who has written several nonfiction books (Whipping Girl, Excluded, and Outspoken) on the subjects of gender, sexuality, and social justice activism. My debut novel, 99 Erics: a Kat Cataclysm faux novel, is a humorous tale of an ethically non-monogamous bisexual female absurdist short fiction writer who sets out to write a book called “99 Erics,” about her experiences dating ninety-nine different people named Eric. It is more surreal than slutty. …
The following is an excerpt from my debut novel, 99 Erics: a Kat Cataclysm faux novel — a silly, surreal, sex-positive tale about a bisexual female absurdist short fiction writer who dates ninety-nine different people named Eric for literature’s sake. What follows is the second half of Chapter 3: “Lady Parts,” wherein Kat goes out on a “date” with a gay male friend of hers who just so happens to be named Eric . . .
After seating ourselves at the bar, Eric glanced around the fairly crowded room and remarked: I thought this was a queer bar?
Me: It is. …
The following is an excerpt from my debut novel, 99 Erics: a Kat Cataclysm faux novel — a silly, surreal, sex-positive story about a bisexual female absurdist short fiction writer who dates ninety-nine different people named Eric for literature’s sake. What follows is the opening passage of Chapter 22: “Banana Slug of a Different Color.”
It was the worst possible time to be out on a date with Eric #41. Because earlier that day, I overheard someone at work mention that they went to college at UC Santa Cruz, and that their school mascot was the banana slug. And I thought to myself: How whimsical! What an unlikely creature to be a mascot! Are they even a real animal? …
The following is an excerpt from my debut novel, 99 Erics: a Kat Cataclysm faux novel — a silly, surreal, sex-positive story about a bisexual female absurdist short fiction writer who dates ninety-nine different people named Eric for literature’s sake. What follows is the first half of Chapter 16: “Posers,” wherein Kat tries to explain what being queer is like, in her estimation. A video of me reading the entire chapter can be found here).
These days, it’s really difficult to talk about being queer. Because there’s this popular presumption that society is now totally a-okay with same-sex relationships, which ignores the fact that this is far from the truth, plus most of us grew up during a time when it most definitely was not okay to be queer. And many people seem to have drunk the “we’re just like you except for our sexual orientation” kool-aid, so they don’t even consider the possibility that the experience of being queer might be considerably different from what straight people experience. …
The following is an excerpt from my first full-length foray into fiction: 99 Erics: a Kat Cataclysm faux novel. The book is a humorous account of a bisexual female absurdist short fiction writer who dates ninety-nine different people named Eric for literature’s sake. This chapter takes place just after Kat recounts the period of her life when she identified as lesbian, before eventually coming out as bisexual (a video of me reading that preceding chapter can be found here).
So then you go back to the world of dating men. Which superficially sounds way easier than dating women, if for no other reason than your dating pool becomes significantly larger. But the problem is, you are no longer the same person that you used to be way back when you were last actively dating members of the male persuasion. Because now you have a lesbian history — or “herstory,” I suppose, if you’re going to be a stickler about it. And that doesn’t simply go away just because you identify as bisexual now. And you’ve learned so much from your previous immersion in queer culture — far more than the superficial signifiers of queerness that everybody else thinks are so important, but you and Saussure beg to differ. …
(plus feel free to send me your questions…)
This happened to me once before. Well, sort of. It was 2016, and I was getting ready to release my third book (and the first one that I self-published), Outspoken: A Decade of Transgender Activism and Trans Feminism. My initial plan was to release it in October, but it was a presidential election year here in the U.S., so it was virtually impossible to get any social media traction during that last month of the campaign. So, being the “genius” that I am, I thought: “Why don’t I just push back the release date to November, because once Clinton is finally elected, everything will settle back down, and then I can focus on book promotion . . …
In part one of this series, Making Sense of Autogynephilia Debates, I provided an overview of Ray Blanchard’s autogynephilia theory and the numerous lines of evidence against it, and explained why it continues to be forwarded despite its lack of scientific validity. In this follow up essay, I will critique last-ditch efforts by autogynephilia’s proponents to salvage or resuscitate the theory.
I will presume that readers here are already familiar with that previous essay and the many points I make in it, so I encourage you to read that first if you haven’t already. Over the course of this piece, I will sometimes suggest that readers consult various “rationales” (e.g., …
As a scientist who has written extensively about the field of transgender health, I am always astounded by how often Ray Blanchard’s autogynephilia theory is cited or invoked, given that it has been so resoundingly refuted in the research literature. In this essay, I will attempt to explain why so many people still find the theory compelling, despite its lack of scientific validity. Hopefully, this will be a helpful “explainer” for lay readers who don’t necessarily want to get too “into the weeds” regarding this thirty-year-old sexology theory, but want a general sense of what all the fuss is about.
This essay is divided into three sections: 1) The theory (and the evidence against it) in a nutshell, 2) Trans women’s objections to the theory (on top of it being incorrect), and 3) So who still believes autogynephilia theory, and what are their rationales? A companion essay entitled Autogynephilia, ad hoc hypotheses, and handwaving is in the works (edit 4–5–20: it’s now been published, click the link to read it!); …
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