While there was plenty I could learn from Anne Shirley or Harriet the Spy, I always longed to read about an actual tomboy like me – no long braids, no puffed sleeves, no growing up into a swan after an ugly duckling childhood. As a young reader, I always wanted a role model who didn’t grow out of her awkward phrase, who didn’t eventually find that it all just fell into place – because I…
I’m sitting alone in Girvan, Scotland, on one of the longest days of the year, looking at the late sun and thinking about the women who all of a sudden caught fire. There were a good number of them. Enough, in the 1700s, to constitute a chapter in the medical literature. The most-quoted British case is Grace Pitt, a 60ish female whose charred corpse was discovered one morning in 1744—like “a log of…
To be a woman who dares overstep her place in the physical or the digital worlds is to be branded a target by men, men who wish to return to halcyon days: of women only seen (except when they shouldn’t be) but not heard, of apron-donning, of apple-cheeked ma’ams bowing to their every whim. For these men, food -- or rather, feeding -- is the second most important women’s work (with the first being to…
Previously by Molly Knefel: Growing Up Gender Nonconforming Every girl at sports camp, it seemed to me, was there for cheerleading. As a second-grader (well, summer-before-third-grader), I harbored a Daria-like disdain for the cheerleaders, fueled by their much greater hatred of me. We stayed in college dorms, two rooms with two girls each, adjoined by a bathroom. I got placed with three girls who were already best friends. In my memory, they all look alike…
Picture this: a world in which you must declare your preferred gender pronoun, or PGP, in every single sentence you utter. If you are someone who cares about the notion of gender, this may sound rather wonderful. No one would ever get confused. You’d always know how to address your fellow persons, and they would know how to address you.
We're coming up on the 40th anniversary of one of the world's most well-known cult films, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. To celebrate, MAC has released a celebratory line of cosmetics so you can facially embody, with perfect screen accuracy, your favorite character from the film.
It's actually kind of amazing no major makeup company has done this before. Rocky Horror
The Toast's previous coverage of trans* issues can be found here. This post was brought to you by "a fervent believer in the matriarchy."
It’s the dipping point of a late July sunset, and my roommate (and hetero life-mate) Seth and I are walking to meet some friends at a bar. We are both wearing wonderful snapback hats and Seth’s hat has large, O’Keeffe-worthy flowers splashed all over it and mine
A little chat on gender expression and performance on Twitter this morning turned into a lively and frolicksome mass-interview that I invite you to join in, should you feel so inclined.
ok what book/movie/media WHATEVER best encapsulates your gender expression and why, GO (if you feel like it)
Jade Sylvan's previous work for The Toast can be found here. In high school, my parents said I went through “phases.” I would cut my hair short, lift weights, and dress super butch one year, then I would grow my hair out, get highlights, go on diets, and wear tight dresses and heels the next. Sometimes in my butcher phases I'd smash down my breasts and deepen my voice and actually try to “pass”…
I am a smallish woman with short hair who is called “sir” roughly once a week. This usually happens in retail establishments, or at restaurants, or especially at airport retail restaurants - but it’s okay!
Gender is weird, and hair is even weirder - but let’s go through some Dos and Don’ts regarding what happens next.
In the town where I grew up, you couldn't go shopping without running into someone you knew. It was the icing atop the self-conscious cake of adolescence, to constantly anticipate stepping out of the dressing room to show your mom some jeans and into the surprise judgmental gaze of a classmate. It meant burying tampons under the other Target items you and your mom were buying, hoping that the attractive theater boy ringing you up…
Few things in life are certain, but there is one area of human behavior I fancy myself something of an expert -- in fact, I rate my own judgment in this area so highly that I can confidently claim to predict the response of every conscious being with 100% accuracy, should you find yourself in a wagering mood. This is a social experiment that will require a little effort on your part, but I guarantee…
America’s Next Top Model’s twentieth season is the first to include both female and male contestants, and in the episodes aired so far this decision has exploded the show’s uneasy truce with the male gaze, which has always sat awkwardly with the show’s purported commitment to Spice Girls-ian empowerment. Not only has gender-related subtext become an open discussion, but also a ton of beautiful half-clothed men have hurt each other’s feelings. It’s deeply entertaining and…
Sex and gender have always been an intrinsic part of my thoughts about my children; as soon as I found out I was carrying triplets I hoped they were not all the same sex, because I wanted to experience parenting both and had no intention of going through pregnancy again after the havoc one multiple pregnancy unleashed on my body. Luckily, we did end up with a mixed bag. From the beginning, their clothes, blankets and so on were…
