LGBTQ* Books You May Want To Read

Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman

LBGTQ* Theatres YOU SHOULD Know

About Face Theatre - Chicago  (following text from About Face’s Website)

Mission: About Face Theatre creates exceptional, innovative, and adventurous plays to advance the national dialogue on gender and sexual identity, and to challenge and entertain audiences in Chicago, across the country, and around the world.(from website)

Current Production:

Internet personality/trans activist/ fierce community leader Ms. Ma uses her YouTube page to create community, live glamour, and spread the good word about queer safe spaces in Chicago. WHAT’S THE T? tells the story of Ms Ma’s tangled web of connections, her struggle to stay positive, and what happens to her community when she disappears.

Inspired by issues of race, gender, age and class in Boystown, WHAT’S THE T? is based on true stories and interviews from LGBTQA young folks in and around Chicago.
(for more information, visit their Box Office!)

Want to get to know more about the AFT Interns?! Visit their Tumblr. (http://aboutfaceinterns.tumblr.com/)

Trans* and Gender Equality Marketing

Graphic from the NYC Commission on Human Rights

PDF: Gender Identity Discrimination NYC Human Rights Law publication

PDF: Defending Your Rights NYC Human Rights, compiled by Columbia Law School

Vocabulary You Should Know (and understand)

Graphic and following text from BASIC RIGHTS OREGON:

You may have heard the word cisgender before, but you may not know what it means.  Cisgender is a term used to describe people who, for the most part, identify as the gender they were assigned at birth.  For example, if a doctor said “it’s a boy!” when you were born, and you identify as a man, then you could be described as cisgender. In other words, ‘cisgender’ is used to describe people who are not transgender.

So why do we say ‘cisgender’ instead of ‘non-transgender’? Because, referring to cisgender people as ‘non trans’ implies that cisgender people are the default and that being trans is abnormal.  Many people have said ‘transgender people’ and ‘normal people’, but when we say ‘cisgender’ and ‘transgender’ neither is implied as more normal than the other.

Using the word ‘cisgender’ is also an educational tool.  To simply define people as ‘non-trans’ implies that only transgender people have a gender identity.  But that’s not true.  Like sexual orientation, race, class, and many other identities, all of us have a gender identity. 

Language is important; it defines human relationships.  That is why it’s important use language of equality and inclusion.