What I'm Made Of

What I’m Made Of is a feature documentary about a group of trans and genderqueer teens and the doctor who’s helping them stay healthy, happy, and true to who they are. 

New binders are always a bit tight when you first wear them I’ve found, but it shouldn’t:

- Feel like you cannot breathe- Cause pain when inhaling and exhaling - Cause bruising- Feel very uncomfortable - Feel very restricting

If you are new to binding, I suggest binding only for a few hours (3-6 hours max) to let your body get used to it.

Do not bind for more than 8 hours a day.

Make sure to rest for a couple of days if your body hurts. (This is a sign that you are binding too much).

I think if your binder is too small, you will know when it’s too small.

Things to make you feel better:

Make it feel like you are outside also turn on your volume

Talk you threw a stressful time

Automatic flatter 

Quick Distractions:

Draw Silk

Music Squares

jigsaw puzzles 

Sudoku

cookie clicker

Immediate Crisis Help

List of Hotlines - Crisis Hotlines by need

Befrienders - Find crisis hotline information for the country you live in

Suicide Hotlines - A list of crisis hotlines by country

International Rape Crisis Hotlines - A list of international crisis hotline directories

Lifeline Crisis Chat - Online chat help for people in a crisis

IMAlive - online crisis chat

Self Help

MoodGym 

Self Harm Alternatives

Self-help Anxiety Management App

Get Help

Find Therapist

Find a Psychiatrist

How To Help Others

Depression

Anxiety 

Eating Disorder   

Cutting

Suicidal

Panic attacks

Gifs:

watch the ball

breath in and out with the box

OUR Restroom: Helping businesses understand the importance of unisex restrooms, one bathroom at a time.

Kristin Russo, Executive Director of LGBTQIA youth organization Everyone Is Gay and Allison Weiss, musician and queer rights advocate, are teaming up as directors of OUR Restroom to raise much-needed awareness around issues related to bathrooms, gender identity, and gender expression.

1. Ask new friends what their pronouns are.

I’ve heard from many of my cis friends that they feel awkward asking, and that this question could be interpreted as invasive. But, there’s nothing invasive about asking a person how they want to be addressed.

Much like Maria Griffiths of Imogen Binnie’s Nevada, I grew up in what can only be described as “Cow Town, Pennsylvania… a shithole in the middle of nowhere.” A town outside of a town outside of Pittsburgh during the eighties and nineties, it had a population of 9,000, “none” of which, apparently, were gay. It was in this backwater hell that I was routinely harassed and ridiculed for being quiet, weird, and “faggy.” Like so many survivors of the American Small Town before me, I looked to books for some explanation as to the alienation and isolation that I felt. It was important to me, and fostered my imagination, the way only fiction can do. However, what I never managed to encounter in any of the many alien worlds, alternate dimensions, and babysitter’s clubs that I visited, was someone who understood me. Even now, with trans women more visible and represented than ever, nearly every story I’ve ever read about a trans woman was written by a cis person. All I want in my life is more books written by trans women.

I read Nevada a few years into my transition. It had been sitting on my shelf for a few months while I lived in Poughkeepsie, unread but often thought about. I often wondered how it would be once I eventually got around to it. I feared that it would bore me. When I finally read it while crashing on the couch of a Brooklyn punk house on Foster Ave populated exclusively by transsexuals, I cried. Since by that time I was already trying to forget the part of me that was like James H, I didn’t have the apparently common reaction where you just put the book down quietly and transition the next day. It had the most peculiar effect on me: it tickled the back of my brain so that I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Slowly, over days, weeks, months, years I became obsessed. During that time, my existence slowly changed. I became interested in reading again. I made all my friends read it just so I could talk to them about it. I started writing (if you can call it that) again. I gave it to guys on grindr for laughs, leading to the creation of the oft-misunderstood term, egg. I embarrassed myself in front of its gracious author at least once, leading to a hilarious button that I treasure even as it reminds me what an idiot I’ve been. It was a slow build, but as I thought about it over those months and years since, with the help of a close, incredibly intelligent friend, I finally realized that my obsession stemmed not from what I saw in the book, but what it, and its author, saw in me.

What makes Nevada powerful isn’t that there is a trans woman in it. We are very represented. There are more trans women in movies and TV than ever, yet none of these portrayals interest me or my friends, because they aren’t for us. I can see myself in any story’s protagonist if I squint my eyes hard enough, so it’s not just having someone that’s “like me” to empathize with. Nor was it the powerful message its final page sends about what it means to live truth. What made Nevada powerful was that it assumed I would read it. It was written by a trans woman, for a trans woman. Here in front of me, with its peculiar orange cover, was physical proof that I wasn’t alone in the world. It was inclusion in a culture. “Have you read Nevada?” isn’t just a question, it’s a statement of identity. Much in the way that having read Homer made you a Greek, having read Nevada is rapidly becoming a cultural touchstone for trans women. A book assumes that I exist, therefore, I do. Nevada touched me because it was meant to. It was a world that I knew, occupied by people that I recognized. I had finally found home.

Her Story is Emmy F*cking Nominated

“When I talk about making your own content that you want to see and how important it is that you OWN said content, this is what I’m talking about. No one gave these women permission to make a show about trans dating lives. No one would throw money at an intersectional queer story starring and written and made by LGBTQ people. So they made it themselves. And it’s nominated for an Emmy today. Because they didn’t wait for permission. Because they didn’t wait for approval from a company owned by petty, condescending men. Because they didn’t sacrifice putting queer people in the forefront and queer people behind the camera. Because yes, it’s harder but in the end, for the longevity of your career, it is worth it.

We are not here for other people to piggyback on our lives and make money from our work. We are not empty press and empty promises with other people puppeteering. We are here to REALLY FUCKING MAKE THINGS THAT ARE REAL AND OURS. Independently. And Her Story is just the first, very worthy example.”