In vain have I struggled

BONUS: Trinity letting Mel's hair down

I've never been able to make my family understand what I do.

Dr. Alan Hart helped pioneer the use of chest X-rays to diagnose tuberculosis. Hart was married to a woman and practicing medicine in San Francisco in 1918 when he was outed as a trans man by a former colleague. Dr. Hart was chased out of town on the back of headlines like “Girl Poses as Male Doctor in Hospital" (he was not posing, of course) and spent much of his life moving from town to town to escape various forms of transphobia. Hart was also a novelist, and wrote of one of his characters, "When it came to outrunning gossip he found he couldn't do it," which was Hart's experience as well—he moved seven times in nine years all around the U.S. in search of safety, but it always proved fleeting. He did manage to get a graduate degree in radiology, though, and helped show how chest X-rays could show very early signs of tuberculosis, thus allowing patients the opportunity to rest and get adequate nutrition sooner, which contributed to better outcomes. Chest X-rays continue to be an essential diagnostic tool; mobile chest X-ray machines that can be carried via backpack now serve rural communities, so Hart's popularization of this diagnostic method continues to save lives.

While it's true that Hart was publicly outed once and moved all over the country for a while, by the time he died, he had served as the director of hospitalization and rehabilitation for the Connecticut State Tuberculosis Commission for over a decade. Nor was he exclusively hounded or excluded from society at home in Oregon, either -- there are regular mentions of him (under his chosen, male name, or occasionally simply as an "Albany man") and his second wife in his hometown newspaper, The Albany Democrat, throughout the 20s and 30s, reporting when they were in town for social visits, promoting his novels, and even reporting on his graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with his graduate degree. Nor does it seem most people saw him as a woman pretending to be a man for most of his life, despite the press his 1918 outing received -- a reviewer of one of his novels even once remarked that Dr. Hart, while a good writer, didn't seem to know much about women! (Having read a bit of Hart's fiction, I don't think this is true, but to each their own, I suppose)

I mention this because I think it's important to emphasize that trans people -- even trans people who have experienced dramatic setbacks in their lives, like Dr. Hart's 1918 outing -- have not only always existed, but always persisted through trouble and often managed to live very fulfilling lives that were not exclusively marred by transphobia. Nor did everyone around them feel that they were simply "posing" as their gender. Even in 1918, people in Hart's hometown expressed disgust at the way the press way treating the story, and the local newspaper did an exceptionally sympathetic interview with him that allowed him to express his own feelings on the situation and affirm that transitioning was the best choice he could have made! In fact, he was very clear he was not ashamed of his choices, saying:

Closest match: Erithacus rubecula genome assembly, chromosome: 5 Common name: European Robin

Hello everyone!

For grad, I'm researching the perception of transgender voices in audio fiction & looking for participants to complete a 10-minute survey. Responses are anonymous & I'm aiming to get as many as possible!

Form will close Friday, April 10th:

The pattern of the survey is this: it gives me a clip of a (trans) woman's voice and then asks me to rate how feminine it is. I don't believe voice gendering exists on a likert scale. The voice is 100% feminine because it belongs to a woman, and that is the entire definition of what femininity is. The survey then asks me if I would enjoy the voice to a different degree if it were more or less feminine. I don't believe it is possible for it to become more or less feminine because, again, any and every woman's voice is equally feminine by definition.

In effect, this survey seems to be asking how clocky the sample voices are, that is: how well they fit cis-centered stereotypes. (Is this voice high pitched enough to be "really" feminine? Is it soft spoken enough? Is it demure enough?) It seems to be asking if voices which are better passing are more desirable.

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The five poems, nine stories, and one essay that comprise this issue are fifteen of the best pieces we have ever read... and they total more than 28,000 words, which means this issue should keep you busy. These pieces are heartbreaking and hopeful and tender and angry and raw and brave and unapologetic, and even after reading this issue countless times during the production process, reading the whole thing still makes us cry. We hope you love every word. 🪐🗡️🌈