The faces and stories of transgender teen America:
People call me a “transtrender.” It’s people who pretend to be trans to be popular. It’s because of what I look like and how I’m not taking hormones for my transition, but there are plenty of transgender people who don’t want to go through that process. I like how I look, I really do. It’s up to other people to change their perception of me rather than for me to change myself to fit what their perception is. I wear dresses sometimes, but that doesn’t make me less of a man. I definitely have a feminine side. I enjoy having my makeup done and can still look pretty and be a man.
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In charitable signal-boosting news, I encourage anyone who can to donate to this GoFundMe for Burnell and Keasha Colton, a couple from the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans, a designated food desert, who have thrown their life savings into opening the first grocery store in the area since Katrina.
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If you’d like to hear Friend of The Toast Helen McClory read, she will be appearing this Thursday at WORD Brooklyn at 7pm with Tobias Carroll and Susan Rukeyser.
Here is another Friend of The Toast endeavor I encourage you to support!
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How Alasdair Gray reimagined Glasgow:
“Most people I know have an Alasdair Gray story,” Beatrice Colin, a writer and professor at the University of Strathclyde, told me recently, “most of them unprintable. To give you an example, I once heard that he threw a party in his flat. When it was late and he wanted everyone to leave, rather than ask them politely, he took all his clothes off and stood at the door naked until people got the message.”
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There’s some good news coming out of Oregon today! Following the story we posted yesterday about Oregon all-girls Catholic school, St. Mary’s, firing a counselor who’d revealed she was a lesbian, a source has informed us that they’ve just amended their equal employment policy to include sexual orientation.
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The world’s longest yard sale:
The family that lives here grows corn and soybeans like everyone else; they’ve been on this land since the ‘30s, maybe longer. They’re a husband and wife, kids grown and gone, spending the day sitting on lawn chairs in the corner of the tractor shed where they’ve laid out the overflow of their lives, folding tables piled with baby clothes and knitting patterns and Garfield mugs. There’s a doll in a green floral dress lying on the table just above some crocheted pot holders, with a yellowed porcelain face and muslin limbs. She’s lying on an index card: “Doll is 80+ years old. $40.00.”
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My friend Carrie’s new puppy is a menace:
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Deleted comment of the day:
Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
Perry (Mr. Deleted Comment) can’t spell. What a looser.
Gotta make sure the breaks haven’t braked.
A few months ago, I saw a t-shirt that said “Brake the Rules”. Sadly, I forgot to take a picture, but I still cherish the memory.
Oh, I was just about to post a National Geographic article about the Lower 9th Ward Market to my food blog link roundup–now I will include the GoFundMe link, so thank you!
Aww, deleted comment. Usually they fill me with such rage but this spambot is so full of helpful suggestions I can’t get mad at it.
Can’t argue with the truth!
*cackles loudly at deleted comment*
*slinks out to double-check tires*
Those trans teens must have some sort of secret army of onion-cutting ninjas hidden among their killer new threads.
It would be weird to be teary-eyed and choked up with pride and tenderness about a bunch of kids I’ve never met and probably never will, right? Must be the allergies that are doing it instead. Yeah. Allergies. That’ll do it.
Oh good, so I’m not the only one over here whose face is leaking for some reason.
Rummage/yard/garage sales! Oh wow. The one described in the article didn’t really line up with my own childhood experiences with garage sales, probably because the “longest” one has morphed into something more like a flea market. But the photo of the felt covered in “vintage jewelry,” that is straight out of my childhood weekends, going to garage sales with my mom and occasionally my paternal grandmother. The sales that had a box of $x/each brooches were the good ones, not like the ones that were all baby clothes & of no interest to me.
Raise your hand if you’re a garage sale enthusiast, Toasties!
I used to be, but then I realized I had enough of other people’s junk to have my own sale, so I stopped…
QFT.
ME oh man, me. My sister and I go to hunt for vintage toys usually, but sometimes I end up with weird stuff like Muppet Babies snowglobes and vintage sewing patterns.
So many of my childhood weekends were spent at garage sales with my family. As an adult, I’ve trained my husband to enjoy yard saling and we’ve gotten some good stuff from a $15 giant smoker (I’m 95% certain it was part of a divorce sale) to cast iron cookware that was probably at least half a century old, and even a good sized floor loom. Garage sales are THE BEST.
Oh man, I just moved and so much of what I need would be great yard sale finds- Lamps! Random side chairs! Interesting stuff to put on my walls! But yard sale season has given way to football season so I’ll either have to do without until spring or hit the thrift shops.
Are there any flea markets around you? I feel like rummage season usually lasts well through fall, but I live in a city now and might be wrong.
I, for one, have been looking for a citrus reamer all summer with no luck, but I just can’t bring myself to buy a new one because it feels like a garage sale purchase. Irrational, maybe, but I’m so positive I should be able to find a nice one used.
Keep trying–I believe strongly in the magic of wanting something so specific and the joy that comes when you actually find it–but if it doesn’t work out, I have one (lemon-lime-sized) that I literally found by the side of the road & would be happy to pass along to you. Fingers crossed for a Thrift Score, tho’.
Check estate sales, too! I got so much of my apartment’s furniture from estate sales for a pretty good price.
Look for estate sales through estate sale companies. I don’t know about other places, but the last day of estate sales out here everything is usually 50% off.
I completely forgot about estate sales! Thanks toast friends!
I want to go to that yard sale so badly I’m breaking a sweat. The neighborhood I grew up in had a massive yard sale where everyone in like a 5-block radius would put out their stuff on the same day. My parents would clear all the junk out of the house and then while they sold it my brother and I would go around buying new junk.
oh jeez I can’t go to them anymore. I spend way too much. I go like once a year and pick out one or two, or go if I’m looking for something very specific. I get way to spendy. They’re intoxicating with their cheap prices and weird goods.
Every year, I go with a group of friends to one friend’s family cabin in the Poconos. The area is rural and poor and it has the TRASHIEST flea market you could ever imagine … it’s just a huge field where people sell used tires, broken crap, and Beanie Babies. This year one of the people in my group wanted to buy a soy candle, wandered into the tent advertising such things, and had to turn right around and leave because there was a Nazi flag (I shit you not) displayed proudly in the tent. (She is Jewish.)
Racist juiceboxes aside, it is the greatest flea market ever and I always come out with the weirdest, coolest stuff. This year yielded a carved wooden bowl and a coaster from some Dutch cruise line. Last year I got the sweetest set of vintage rocks glasses and a Delft-style Dutch shoe.
OMG, a Nazi flag! A cousin was visiting and asked me to take her to the flea market in my town. I had never been. She was having a great time looking at everything while I was on high alert. I saw the Nazi and Confederate memorabilia, but she didn’t. I was watching the exits, watching the pasty white people selling this shit, and staying between them and my cousin. I used posture and attitude to increase my size, watching over my little Native American cousin who is sometimes mistaken for Jewish, always seen as not-white. I was so relieved when we made it back to the car. I locked the doors so fast, she asked what was wrong. We were both trembling after I explained.
Love, love, love garage sales but never get up early enough to get the good stuff! So I haunt the local auction house and thrift stores and usually find at least one cool, interesting object d’art. Last great find: a giant fake fur vest in mint condition for 10.00.
As noted above, I try to avoid them because I already have too much crap and am slowly and painfully dejunking, but that Sinclair dinosaur in the one picture in the article? Damn, I want that. I don’t have room for it, but I dunno, I could hang wet towels on it, maybe? Or… or I’d have to get rid of other things to make room for it! Yeah, that’s the ticket.
No joke – my gramma built an extension on her house specifically to make our family-wide garage sales easier. We also use it to eat outside, but really it’s for garage sales.
I love them so much – even more than the cheap cookware, I love getting a chance to examine the contents of someone’s life for a bit.
Well. And I also sometimes buy bikes cheaply to fix and resell for some extra cash, they’re usually sold for $20 and once they’re adjusted I can get around $60, so its not a bad way to get beer money
Short story time!
Witch, Beast, Saint: an Erotic Fairy Tale by C. S. E. Cooney.
Once upon a time I found a monster in the woods.
In the manner of most witches, I had a knack for discovering lost things. He was crawling with vermin, so wasted he barely flinched when I tested his nose and tongue, checking texture, temperature, moisture.
He was half an inch and kissing close to dying.
This one is so good. All Cooney is good, but I love this one. Have you checked out her BONE SWANS collection of novellas yet?
I have not. I would like to, though!
TREAT YO SELF. It’s more than worth it.
Ugh, ya’ll. Thanks to yesterday’s roundup, I’ve been listening to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton rap performance at the White House and crying about not living anywhere near New York. I want to go see it so badly, but I can’t justify flying to New York when I’m taking a vacation somewhere else later this year.
I searched desperately for a single complete song of Hamilton on Youtube, and I could only find 30-second and 1-minute snippets (plus Miranda’s performance at the White House), so I watched the 1-minute montage video of Hamilton an unknown number of times. What has the Toast done to me?
I am WAITING NOT SO PATIENTLY for the cast recording to come out!! Just a few more weeks to wait.
SEPTEMBER 25TH WILL BE A DAY OF MUCH REJOICING AT THE TOAST (digital soundtrack release daaaaaay)
I’m betting on a national tour after it sweeps next year’s Tony’s, so there’s that to look forward to!
That puppy is a menace…TO MY HEART
I (sort of) know AJ! They put on a fashion show through their Faces of Equality organization for teens and it was amazing. All these teenagers designing their own outfits and proudly strutting their stuff. It was the first LGBTQ-type thing my young teenager attended after being outed at school and seeing it seriously upped her confidence levels 1000%. It also inspired her first funky haircut! AJ is doing awesome work.
Little bit of Canadian political news for you today!
So last week, a bunch of Conservative candidates running for office here in Ottawa were supposed to meet with the mayor, but they didn’t show up to the meeting. Then they made a big deal out of rescheduling, and only 2 out of 9 candidates came.
Monday morning’s discussion was also scheduled at the same time Conservative Leader Stephen Harper held an event at the Delta hotel in Ottawa. At least five of the seven other candidates joined the leader instead of the meeting with Watson, the CBC’s Alistair Steele reported. The mayor’s office said Wednesday was provided as another option, but Poilievre chose Monday.
It’s almost beautiful in a way, how obvious they are making it that they are nothing more than Harper’s lapdogs and don’t give a shit about their potential constituents. Our mayor got over 76% of the vote in last year’s municipal election, you’d think they would at least pretend to be interested in working with him.
Also:
“Mayor Watson would have liked to have seen more candidates in attendance to learn about these important issues but he recognizes that time is short in a campaign and there is always competition for a candidate’s time,” read a statement from spokesman Brook Simpson.
Time is short in a campaign? Isn’t this the longest federal electoral campaign in Canadian history?
I’m choosing to believe that last quote is thinly-veiled sarcasm.
That’s how I read it, for sure.
I know Jim Watson is TOO NICE a person to stoop to such sarcasm but it fills me with delight that someone in his office drafted that beautifully worded plausible-deniability sarcasm masterpiece.
Hahaha, that’s perfect. And Poilievre is suuuuuch a sleazebag.
(Pedantic point: the 1872 election was slightly longer.)
Guys there is definitely something in my eye right now.
JO YOU ARE A GARBAGE HUMAN WHY DO YOU KEEP DOING THIS TO ME.
I am never going to tell someone how to do their fandom, but honest to Maude, I never expected this. But of course I should have.
Didn’t see the movie, had no idea that James had a ferret for his familiar. Cute!
Hey Toasts. So my girlfriend got a text this morning about this: Alan Pean went to a Houston hospital to get mental healthcare and was shot by off-duty cops there. One of her coworkers is good friends with this guy. They’re not setting up a GoFundMe or anything; this is just a request to keep them in your thoughts and an example of yet another fucked up police shooting.
ETA: Jesus fucking Christ. When I went to find this article, the page had a link to this: Unedited video of fatal deputy-involved shooting. Gilbert Flores shot, killed by deputies Greg Vasquez, Robert Sanchez. It just doesn’t fucking end.
That quote from the trans teen article is exactly why I keep fairly quiet about my gender identity. I already have to deal with the “bi chic” bullshit; don’t want to deal with that w/r/t gender too.
Ugh, bi erasure and crap about your gender identity? I hate that you have to go through that.
I mean honestly I’m probably more concerned than I need to be; my friends are, for the most part, really cool and knowledgeable about gender and sexuality – the hate that I’ve gotten has been mostly from people I have little or no emotional connection to. But, yanno, once bitten etc etc.
I wish I had something super helpful to say other than, “I think I kinda know the feeling and it sucks.”
Which is why I think I’m generally super quiet on all fronts, but I kind of figure at this point that even with people with whom it’s never come up, I probably read a little like a flashing neon question mark in a glass closet. But. Y’know. A very quietly flashing neon question mark that we don’t talk too much about, I guess.
As noted above, I try to avoid them because I already have too much crap and am slowly and painfully dejunking, but that Sinclair dinosaur in the one picture in the article? Damn, I want that. I don't have room for it, but I dunno, I could hang wet towels on it, maybe? Or… or I'd have to get rid of other things to make room for it! Yeah, that's the ticket.
Didn't see the movie, had no idea that James had a ferret for his familiar. Cute!
Oh, it was really nice, loved it.
Oh good, so I'm not the only one over here whose face is leaking for some reason.