Study expands understanding of nonbinary identities

A recent study displays the variety, diversity and wonder of gender identity among nonbinary people. As someone who struggles to describe my own sense of gender (when I have one), it’s deeply life-affirming to see other people say a lot of the same things I’ve said.

Often when I’m trying to explain nonbinary genders to people, I have to start by explaining what binary means: “Woman/man, you have to pick from one of two categories, that’s the binary. Some people don’t fit neatly into those categories, they’re nonbinary.” After I say that, I often still get blank looks—because woman/man is so ingrained in our culture it doesn’t make sense to a lot of people (who fit inside that binary) that there are experiences outside of what feels to them like natural categories.READ MORE

Reader question: Nico’s dance style

Got great reader questions this week: where does Nico’s dance style come from? And what was the inspiration for the cabaret scene in Nico & Tucker?

Second question first: I’ve been to a few genderqueer/genderfluid performances in the last few years. A cabaret at the Philly Trans Health conference provided the framework for the scene. And it gave me some ideas of the kinds of performances to showcase.READ MORE

Gender shapes bodies — bodies don’t create gender

Last weekend I stopped by the MSP Comic Con. It was fun! But wow, the boobs and the chests. So much of the commercial comic art is about hyper-unrealistic body types. I know, this has been the case for ages. And this is not a blog post about the evils of comic art. I love comic art and comics.

But most of us are much better at realizing that superpowers are rarely literally real than we are at realizing superboobs are also rarely real. Also they’re not actually how I prefer my people to look. Not even my superheroes. I think that’s true for a lot of us. READ MORE

Nico & Tucker Launch Day!

I really wanted to post a video of me reading chapters 1 & 2 for launch day, but I woke up with some kind of funky virus. I am just not going to look as happy on video as I’d like. So bear with me and I’ll update later this week with the live reading.

In the mean time, have you read the awesome interview on Huffington Post? If you have, I’d love to know your thoughts about other ways to describe/communicate nonbinary genders, especially to people who are well inside the binary.READ MORE

Help me pick an author photo

With the launch of Nico & Tucker happening mid-May, I decided it was time for a haircut and author photos that more accurately represent me. You can see my current photo on the home page of this site or the about page. It’s a really good photo! And it rocks my super-Jewish hair. But it also makes me look very “woman.” I still plan to use that one any time I need to infiltrate a bastion of conservativeness.

But now I get to rock a new photo! I enlisted the very expert help of Anna Min from Min Enterprises Photography. Her event photography has included a lot of high profile local queer and trans events, so I figured we’d easily be on the same page about the  photo I was looking for. We had a fun time trying different locations in her building. From that set of photos there are three that would work well as author photos.READ MORE