Fuel Featured Voices
A quick message from our sponsors before we begin. There are currently 48 Gender Warriors fueling my efforts in running Featured Voices and everything else that goes on behind the scenes of this blog, including offline advocacy.
If you can, please sign up as a contributor. Even $1 will get you “access to juicy gossip and my latest coming-goings in the Patron-exclusive monthly newsletter + snarky humor and warm feels + song of the month” plus random surprises now and then.
So THANK YOU to Robyn, Addison, Taj, Kim, Chloe, Robyn (yes, there are two Robyn’s with a y), Cai, Elizabeth, Hezekiah, Jo, Julia, Avren, Rhys, Lore, Marta, Dave, Catherine, Finn, Havu, Vierge, Kara, Rory, Paul, Vé, Andy, Darci, Rex, Kameron, Justice, Dee, J Claira, Aimee, T, Sawyer, Ansel, Jevon, KV, JTMD, stine, August, Kim, fluffy, Aeron, Jamie, Gil, Sahra, my lovely wife, and my annoyingly loving dad.
March: MAAB Non-Binary Stories
Honestly, I thought I’d publish about two stories, three if I got lucky. Instead, we had EIGHT featured voices amplifying dmab non-binary visibility.
- Jacob Tobia: Why I’m Genderqueer, Professional, and Unafraid
- Max: What To Expect When You’re Questioning
- fluffy: Male-Assigned NonBinary Medical Transition
- Brianna: Doing Femininity Right
- K: The Outs and Ins of Binary
- Alyx: Through the AI Eye
- Dee: Genderfluid
- Indi: Drawing Inspiration
All these stories of honesty, authenticity, questions, inner challenges, outer struggles, conundrums, or empowerment, were surprisingly varied and poignant. I hope you enjoyed them as much as I did.
On a separate track but related track, as a follow-up to the NN Readership Survey I published a compilation of all the non-binary resources you feel are missing in the community. My hope for Featured Voices is to start filling this gap, at least in a small yet meaningful way.
April: SOFFAs
SOFFA = Significant Others, Friends, Family, Allies. This month, I’m making our Supporters the stars of the show.
Who will be featured? Anyone who has a story to tell about someone who influenced their journey, or how they’ve made an impact someone else’s life. This can be written by a partner, friend, or ally, or a non-binary person writing about their loved one. And yes, my spouse wants to write a piece too!
So tell your friends, tell your family, tell yourself: WRITE something. We all have SOFFAs, and we’re all someone’s SOFFA.
What will they talk about? SOFFAs are the theme, but other than that it’s quite broad. They will talk about coming out, acceptance, rejection, dealing with fear, support, changing identities, types of relationships, degrees of disclosure, and… I’m sure they’ll surprise me.
Should I email Micah and ask to write something? YES!
A common thread has been people’s hesitation: “My story isn’t positive, it’s quite the opposite, full of challenges and fallouts, and doesn’t have a happy ending. Can I still write about it?” YES! While I try to find a bright side to everything, I believe in honesty and truth. Every experience is worth writing about, whether things turned out well in the end or not.
May: Out At Work / School
How did we get to May already? Time is baffling.
I had hard a time picking next month’s theme, but decided upon our experiences at being out (or not out) at work. By “work” I mean wherever you conduct your daily life. If you’re a full-time student, then talk about school. If you’re a professional parent, talk about attending parenting groups.
I chose this theme because coming out professionally can be a lot less straightforward as a non-binary trans person than someone whose identity is closely aligned with male or female categories. It’s different than coming out to your family (unless you work for your family, in which case you have my sympathies) because colleagues are essentially strangers, yet you interact with them almost everyday. Even if all you did was send an email, or choose not to come out, or have been coming out for two decades, your experiences are worth sharing.
Anyway, if you need more prompts or ideas, tell me a little about your story, and I’ll tell you what pops out as an interesting thread worth pursuing.
So, who’s going to be our next Featured Voices guest? (Is it you? It could be you!)
genderqueer.me 
Hi Micah, I’ve been paying a lot of attention to the blog recently, and loving the content. I’m looking forward to the next couple themes, and I’d like to suggest one, if other months are up in the air. I think a lot about what role models I’ve had, including some trans ones but mostly people who aren’t trans but whose way of living has been inspiration for me (people like David Bowie, for example). I think it would also be a great opportunity to talk about trans people in the media, how we in the community (especially a non-binary community) see the progress and feel about attempts at representation. How we’re finding ourselves, being inspired and understanding through others what we need to be – and maybe also what we’re trying to contribute to the void.
I’m not sure if this is what you’re looking for necessarily, but I thought I’d suggest it, and I’m sure the upcoming months will be satisfying whatever their subjects. Thank you for all you do, Kell
Thanks Kell! That’s an excellent suggestion, and I will add it to the list. I’ve written several critiques on journalistic takes of trans / genderqueer portrayal in the media, so to me it’s always a topic worth discussing.