It's not just about the restrooms but because you all keep making it about the restrooms we can talk about that...

Presented to Celebrate Diversity 2017 in Warsaw, Indiana.

I stand with my young child and face two doors, knowing what I need can be found behind both, aware that choosing one over the other is to publicly declare my deepest political allegiances. I casually make my way through Door #1, hoping nobody will notice. “Sir” I look up, and realize she’s looking directly at me. I’ve been found out. “Sir, you want to be over there,” she commands as she points directly toward Door #2, valiantly defending the innocence of the flock of preschool girls we’re both surrounded by. We go into the other room without a fuss. My child peers into a nearby urinal with suspicion at its contents, then up at me. “Mommy, what-” I swiftly brush him into the nearest stall before he can utter any more incriminating words, not knowing how to explain to a preschooler that there is no Door #3 for people like me.

There is a chance that any time you or your loved ones enters a public restroom, that they could be sharing it with a sex offender.  Child molesters, voyeurs/exhibitionists, date rapists - these are all people who buy the same groceries as us, eat at the same restaurants as us, and fill up at the same gas stations as us.  If you were the type to be concerned about safety in public restrooms, and believed that legislation were an effective tool to protect restroom patrons, what could you do about this situation?  If your proposed response is to outlaw transgender people, you just might be Indiana Republican state Senator Jim Tomes. Bear with me, I’m quoting him verbatim: “What about the other sector of society of people that who have all through the decades women been using women’s restrooms and men been using men’s restrooms and kind of like that and kind of expect that level of privacy?”

Don’t worry about people who are actually predators and convicted sex offenders; the real danger has been me all along!  Nevermind that if there really were an epidemic of cross-dressing voyeurs peeping under bathroom stalls, Fox News would be plastering their mug shots all over scare pieces in a never-ending parade of shame.  Meanwhile, the true stories of abuse and violence against transgender folks in public spaces get pushed to the back pages of the news.

I don't like the men's restrooms because I'm not a man, I’m nonbinary. I am familiar with the women's restrooms, but I'm not a woman, and I raise far too many suspicions in there now for my comfort anyway. I have gotten very skilled at finding single-user restrooms wherever I go, but I will use the men's room now if it's urgent, and carry myself with the confidence of a mediocre white man in a generally successful attempt to blend in.

I’m disturbed by a trend lately, where some men gleefully plot for (or at least dream about) pushing themselves into women's restrooms in an attempt to get kicked out. Sometimes it’s cis men [“cisgender” means someone who is not transgender]. These cis men are attempting to “prove” that anyone can “fake” being trans simply by throwing on a dress. Sometimes it’s trans men posting selfies, and then "surprise! I have a vagina!" It's supposed to “prove” that they don't belong in women’s restrooms because they "look like a man". The problem is that all of this harms women. Many trans women are suspected of “faking” their genders and that's why these laws are being passed in the first place. They are enforced by targeting women who “look like men”, which hurts all women, trans and cis alike. Plus, at its most basic this trend an example of cis and trans men forcing their way past women’s stated boundaries in an attempt to intimidate them to get their own way. What if masculinity were used for justice instead of violence?

In many states, there has never been a law explicitly against using the "wrong" restroom.  So why after over 100 years of trans people in multi-user public restrooms - yes, we've always been using them, even if you didn't notice - why now do we suddenly have this deep and urgent need for laws to segregate and outlaw us?  Honestly, it's for the money.  This is a great way to scare people into donating money to the political campaign or advocacy organization of their choice.  I'm including pro-LGBT orgs here: many of them use fear tactics to profit from our situation too.

Even if laws were passed explicitly to protect people like me, we still wouldn't be safe.  Laws can only provide recourse against harms already caused, for those of us who can even afford legal action, but they don’t change the hearts and minds of those who act against us.  The fact is, we cannot be safe in a society that demands segregation.  I mean that in the fullest sense.  We cannot be safe in a society that demands “separate yet equal” restrooms.

Racial segregation dates back to 1849; the first separate gendered restroom ordinances came 40 years later, in 1887.  When you dig into the arguments presented when proposing these gendered restrictions over the past century, you will find that it wasn’t about protecting women from men, it especially wasn’t about protecting black women from white men, it was always about protecting white women from black men by demonizing blackness. Segregated restrooms have always been racist as well as sexist, and as such will always be unsafe.

I again want to make it very clear that the root of the violence against my people isn’t the laws, it’s the prevailing mentality of a society that accepts a certain order of things as “normal”, and anyone who deviates is deemed in need of correction. In a society where all genders were valid and deserving of equal recognition and protection, it would be unthinkable to demand some of us to hide ourselves while others flaunt your “normal” genders every chance you get. You accept gender segregation because you don’t see us as real people.

For example: a friend of mine on Facebook recently posted that she defended the right of trans women to use the women’s restroom alongside herself, but she wanted to ask all trans women to please place the seat down after they were finished. Several of her friends chimed in their complaints in the comments. I think they thought they were being cute, but the message was clear: normal women keep the seat down, fake women leave it up. It never occurred to them that if a trans woman leaves the seat up, then leaving the seat up is a normal way for women to use the toilet, because trans women are women, not objects for your scrutiny.

Separating us out as not normal, not like you, not fully people leaves us vulnerable even in places that aren’t segregated by gender, even in places designated specifically for us. Stonewall Inn, site of the Stonewall Riots of 1969, is famed as the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement. In March of last year, a transgender woman went into the single-user restroom of Stonewall Inn, and video surveillance shows a man following her in there, where he then attacked and raped her. There are no safe spaces for people who are deemed less than human.

Two years ago, I spent the weekend traveling the beautiful Ozarks of Missouri with my child and my transgender wife. We stopped at a gas station to fill up, and we needed a bathroom break. It was a tiny place with a single-user restroom on the exterior of the building, so we sat on the nearby bench to wait our turn. The man standing next in line before us refused to budge. Soon he was joined by another man, forming a barricade. A woman came out and begged him not to start anything, to just let us go. We quickly realized they were targeting us, refusing to let us access the single-user restroom, willing to escalate to violence if necessary. They didn’t see a family with a child. They didn’t see people. They just saw some deviants with fake genders. We will never be safe until we are real.

Do I Look Like I Belong in Here?

Content note: bathroom bills, transmisogyny, violation of boundaries (any others?)

I don't like the men's restrooms because I'm not a man, I’m nonbinary. I am familiar with the women's restrooms, but I'm not a woman, and I raise far too many suspicions in there now for my comfort anyway. I have gotten very skilled at finding single-user restrooms wherever I go, but I use the men's room now if it's urgent and carry myself with the confidence of a mediocre white man in a generally successful attempt to blend in.

I’m disturbed by a trend lately, where men gleefully plot for (or at least dream about) pushing themselves into women's restrooms to get kicked out, sometimes posting selfies, and then "surprise! I have a vagina because I'm trans!" It's supposed to "disprove" oppressive bathroom bills, by showing that they don't belong in women’s restrooms because they "look like a man".

The problem is that this harms women. Many trans women are suspected of "looking like a man" and that's why these laws are being passed in the first place. Plus, at its most basic this is an example of men forcing their way past [trans and cis] women’s stated boundaries. What if masculinity were used for justice instead of violence?

To the white boys out there interrupting the conversation with your “but what about?”: There's a key difference between "using the women's restroom to get noticed" and "using the women's restroom to avoid being noticed". I understand as well as any trans person that as long as restrooms are segregated, none of us are really safe. But please join me in working against transmisogyny in our words and actions.

The Violence of Personal Preferences

I see a disturbing pattern in conversations from time to time.
Person targeted with violence and oppression: "This thing hurts me."
Person who isn't targeted the same way: "But it's my personal preference."
It is not only possible, but it is highly probable that your personal preferences were shaped by the same culture of violence that the targeted person wants to be free from.
It is not your fault that your personal preferences are ones which perpetuate violence; however it is your responsibility to reshape your own thoughts and actions to minimize your contribution to violence, and it is your fault if you make excuses instead of doing the hard work.
At no point do you need to explain your violent preferences to the targets of oppression. At no point do you need us to make you feel better for having them.

On the Not-Getting-It-ness of the "Socialized As" Objection

Thinking about "socialized as" narratives, and how they're often created by and/or twisted into the cis agenda. Even non-TERFs seem to have this idea that our sense of ourselves and our place in society is based on behavioral conditioning specific to the gender our parents/teachers/friends assumed we were. This can look like a lot of things, but Ember Assington and I had a chat about a specific example of childhood gender socialization: Christian sexual "purity".

No matter how loudly some Christians claim "no sex outside of marriage" applies to boys equally, they aren't fooling anyone here that it's really about controlling girls. Girls need to "save themselves", girls need to dress "modestly", and married women need to suddenly do a 180 and become sexually available (but on *his* terms).

Ember and I both got a heavy dose of this growing up. We both tried to peform to the best of our abilities, and we both knew which gender role everyone expected us to fulfill. But we didn't internalize those gendered messages they were attempting to target us with, not really.

I never really believed I had sinned when I had sex before marriage. It was fun! I was glad to finally express myself sexually. I knew I had to play "virgin" still, and yes, that in itself is oppression. However, I wasn't dealing with any guilt or shame because I was incapable of feeling like it really applied to me as a non-girl.

Ember's experience was, sadly, the inverse.  All the "male socialization" in the world won't give a non-boy feelings of entitlement to girl's bodies or a sense of sexual autonomy.  They instead deeply struggled with guilt and shame of "impurity", the natural result of being a girl under Christian patriarchy.

And that's just one aspect of what trans socialization really looks like, one drop in the bucket. We all have so many different experiences which are constantly being retroactively misgendered by cis society (even feminism). I hope for a day when our stories aren't estranged.

What are your stories?

Going Where Gender Isn't

This talk was given to the Ethical Society of St Louis on November 10th 2013.

“The way you live without gender is you look for where gender is, and then you go somewhere else.”

I am the face that genderqueer wants you to see. Let me rephrase that. I am the face that you are willing to accept - that society is willing to accept as the proper vessel for my message this morning. I am a white, thin, educated, young person of female history - I’m wearing a bow tie. Bow ties are cool. For those of you who are listening online, yes, this is my voice. I know, it’s not what I was expecting either, but if Bruno Mars ever donates his vocal cords to charity, I’m first on the waitlist.

But what If my body were tall, angular, hair tied back to reveal an adams apple, lipstick applied expertly beneath a mustache, little black dress with a low-cut neckline that plunges down a flat chest... if you were to see that body walking down the street, that would probably strike most people as the punchline to a Monty Python cross-dressing skit more than a proud genderqueer person of male history. They don’t get to use restrooms in peace, have equal employment opportunities, be treated with dignity by medical professionals. Mothers shoo their children away from people like that, as my friends can sadly attest. Add color to that person’s skin, and they’re quickly demoted in the public eye to street walker, because what else could they be going about dressed that way? Perhaps their body is found dead, and the police close the case, because nobody important was killed, only a black “gay sex worker”.

My dramatic hypotheticals are no exaggeration either. Last week, a 13-year-old boy was suspended for wearing a purse to school. Also last week, an agender teenager fell asleep on the bus in California, only to have someone set fire to the skirt they were wearing in a self-professed crime of “homophobia”. This summer, the murder rate of transgender people increased to twice that of gays and lesbians, despite total numbers of trans people in the population being much smaller than cis LGB people.

This, dear humanists, is the violence of genderqueer invisibility, and that which is hidden in the shadows can be dehumanized without recourse. Of the 6,450 people who responded to the 2008 National Transgender Discrimination Survey, nearly ⅛ identified as “a gender not listed here”, that is, their gender is neither man nor woman. (I want to take a quick moment to point out that this number does not include transgender men and transgender women, on account of trans men and women being men and women.) “‘Genders not listed here’ have significantly higher educational attainment than their peers who did not have to write in their gender. . . Nonetheless, ‘genders not listed here’ are living in the lowest household income category at a much higher rate than those who [selected a binary gender].” Of particular note to us here in St Louis, respondents in the midwest and the south were less likely to identify as a non-binary gender. I can tell you from my personal experiences interacting with hundreds of genderqueer people online, that regional disparity is a direct result of the necessity to fit into a binary box for survival in places that are not tolerant of gender diversity.

According to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, those “genders not listed here”, those who are neither woman nor man, also have a significantly higher educational attainment than our cisgender peers [cisgender being someone who is not transgender], but skew much poorer and younger than our binary trans brothers and sisters.  In much the same way that living in the midwest gives us pause to living our authentic selves, coming of age in an era where we have access to internet communities of others like us can also give us the strength to know we are not alone.  But what is the cost of authenticity?  Non-binary and genderqueer people are more likely to avoid medical care for fear of discrimination, and as a result are more likely to not know our HIV status, and when we do know, our HIV-positive status is at a higher rate than other trans people.  We’re more likely to avoid help from the police, because we’re more likely to be harassed by the police.  We’re more likely to have been sexually assaulted at any point in our lives, including childhood.  We’re less likely to have lost a job due to bias, but we’re more likely to seek a job in an underground economy in the first place.  And - perhaps not surprisingly, after all this - we’re more likely to have attempted suicide than our binary trans sisters and brothers.

We keep waiting to be seen, to be heard, to be told that our rights matter and our humanity is valid.  When Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was struck down, Dan Savage announced that transgender people could now serve openly. This assessment was sadly incorrect, and the trans members who serve in our military at twice the rate that cisgender people do were forgotten, our pleas for justice drowned out by the celebration for LGB people. Two years later, and Chelsea Manning still has to claw her way toward basic access to female-appropriate health care. In 34 US states, it is still legal to discriminate against transgender people in the workplace. Several of those states have protections for sexual orientation, such as Missouri affords those LGB people working in the public sector. But when trans people ask to be included, we are told to wait our turn. And we’re still waiting.

In recent news, just last Thursday the US Senate passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, or ENDA, which would provide employment protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.  ENDA has been introduced almost every year since 1994, and similar bills have as well, going back to 1974.  In 2007, protections for trans people were finally added, only to be dropped again, to give the bill a better chance of passing.  This is the first time the bill has been passed in a chamber of congress which included protections for LGB and T.  However, Speaker Boehner has said he plans on blocking this bill, so we still can’t rely upon its passage to protect the equal access to employment rights for trans workers in all the United States, nor would it address many of the other much-needed protections we need in addition to employment rights.

“The way you live without gender is you look for where gender is, and then you go somewhere else.” When I first read that statement by Kate Bornstein, I was struck by both the profound necessity for me to follow that path, and by the sheer impossibility to do so successfully. “The way you live without gender is you look for where gender is, and then you go somewhere else.”

“Which pronouns do you prefer?” I am asked, as is the right thing to do when in doubt. “It doesn’t matter,” I used to lie, afraid I’d be accused of trying to change the world. “Oh you should definitely call me by gender-neutral pronouns,” I would say, enthusiastic that I’d found someone to change the world with me. “Using ‘he’ is fine,” I now admit, having grown weary of changing the world by myself.

“The way you live without gender is you look for where gender is, and then you go somewhere else.”

I stand with my young child and face two doors, knowing what I need can be found behind both, aware that choosing one over the other is to publicly declare my deepest political allegiances. I casually make my way through Door #1, hoping nobody will notice. “Sir” I look up, and realize she’s looking directly at me. I’ve been found out. “Sir, you want to be over there,” she commands as she points directly toward Door #2, valiantly defending the innocence of the flock of preschool girls we’re both surrounded by. We go into the other room without a fuss. My child peers into a nearby urinal with suspicion. “Mommy, what-” I swiftly brush him into the nearest stall before he can utter any more incriminating words, not knowing how to explain to a preschooler that there is no Door #3 for people like me.

One thing I found as I began navigating society from an explicitly genderqueer frame of reference was that if there were any role models, they were rare to be found.  In looking into the history of the movement, I discovered that this was because the genderqueer community, by that name, was barely reaching 2 decades in age. This isn’t to say we’ve just invented the concept - I know genderqueer people in their 50s and beyond - but as a self-named social/political movement, we’re just getting started.

So who are our role models? Where can we find clues on where we’ve come from, to help ground us as we look forward to where we’re going? When I first tried to answer this question years ago, I was hoping to find binders full of genderqueers all over the internet. But what I mostly found were androgynous fashion heros like David Bowie and Tilda Swinton. I felt like I was floundering for a bit. “You mean we all have to figure this out on our own?”  Well... yes.

Early October 2011, Kate Lovelady gave a platform address on The Leaders We’ve Been Waiting For. The description on our podcast page merely describes it as “new ideas gathered by her sabbatical”, but I’m going to spoil the ending for you: we’re the leaders we’ve been waiting for. And it all seemed so warm and inspirational at the time, but I made the connection after a bit that this is what the genderqueer community is already doing. We look around, wondering who will take this movement out of our hands and take it where it needs to go, and as we search, we see the faces of our siblings looking back at us. It’s always been us, going where gender isn’t, together.

So who are we? What are the human faces of genderqueer? Let me start with some of the more creative responses given by those “genders not listed here” when allowed to write in their own on the survey I mentioned earlier: “gender rebel”, “best of both”, “jest me”, “birl” spelled like mix of boy and girl, and my personal favorite, “trannydyke genderqueer wombat fantastica”.  I also conducted my own survey, in preparation for today. I wanted to know what genderqueer people have to say to humanists: what you are encouraged see in us, what you can take initiative to do for us. I got a couple dozen responses which you can read in more detail on my blog entitled “Nerd is my Gender” [click here to read].

The responses were as varied as the individuals who responded, but a common thread ran throughout: a plea for society and for the humanist community to stop precluding our existence. Imagine, if you would, that if it were a matter of daily life that when you introduced yourself to people, they responded with “oh… well what did your parents name you?” rather than a friendly “nice to meet you.” Or if you said you had gotten married, they responded with “well, which state were you married in?” or “is your husband gay?” rather than a hearty “congratulations!” Imagine if you lived in a world where, essentially, you don’t exist to most people, and then you decide to be brave (or stubborn) enough to keep digging your heels in the sand and say “no, you don’t have a space on your form for my gender” or “no, you don’t have a restroom for my gender” or “no, your laws don’t include people like me” or “yes, I do need access to that medical treatment” or “yes that is my real name”. Imagine if you had to keep doing that over and over again, every time you met a new person at the Ethical Society, at the DMV, at the Shop n Save, and often with people you’ve known for months or years too, who suddenly develop “pronoun amnesia” when they’re around you. And then you have to get up the next morning, and find a reason to face all that again, to not join the 41% of us who attempt suicide in our lifetimes.

One of the more important ways we can take gender diversity for granted, and one that is surprisingly easy for everyone to fulfill, is by making the “gender” option on forms a fill-in-the-blank. Every time your form says “check one: M or F”, a kitten dies. Stop erasing us. Instead of the “select one: Mr, Mrs, Miss, Dr, Rev” etc, make it fill-in-the-blank. If every option available for me to chose is going to be a lie, I might as well pick the most fun lie. Doctor Semler? Reverend Semler? The Honorable Semler! That has a nice ring to it. And I’ll have you know, the Ethical Society member directory is literally the only place on the entire internet where I’ve encountered a fill-in-the-blank option. I get mail from the society delivered to Mx Andy Semler, and it makes my day.

Another common thread among survey responses was to please be proactive in making our communities safe for gender diversity.  Have explicit gender-inclusive policies already in place even before the first person complains about an issue. It’s going to take a while before some of us trust you enough to admit that we’re not living life inside the gender binary. For many of us, this is why we may need a sign to feel safe before we out ourselves as genderqueer.  We wait until we hear the code words of inclusivity. One way you can do this is by being explicit that anyone can use whichever restroom they feel more comfortable using, despite their physical appearance or whatever you think they may have underneath their clothes, and make sure the members who frequent the establishment are aware of that. If you have single-user restrooms, don’t label them with a gender at all. For example, our restroom in the nursery wing is gender-neutral. (It is also kept behind lock and key half the time, to my dismay.)

Try not to gender-label any other places or events either, if it’s not absolutely necessary. Insert inclusive language into your casual conversation, such as saying “this activity is for all genders” or the more simple “this activity is for everyone”, instead of the exclusive phrase “boys and girls”.  If you have a men’s club or a women’s club, include invitations to all people who wish to participate in a masculine or a feminine space.  We want to be written into your lives, and for some of us, this may be the first chance for us to finally feel recognized as fully human. “The way you live without gender is you look for where gender is, and then you go somewhere else.” Let that “somewhere else” be where you are, opening your arms to us.

One of the happiest moments for me was when I sat down with my 6-year-old to explain to him that I’m not a woman or a man, that my gender is queer. He was excited. “Sometimes you get to be a boy with me? Wow!” We discussed how that “mommy” and “daddy” are terms for women and men, and that we need a name for me that works for us. Now, I know a lot of parents say this, but I really do have the best kid in the world. He calls me “sweetie”.

Kate Bornstein, in all her infinite wisdom, didn’t quite get this one right for me, I think.  The way I live without gender is I look for where gender is, and then I go somewhere I am loved.

Humanizing Genderqueer 2: Valérie

Humanizing Genderqueer: Lived experiences of non-binary people.


Gender Wins: Recall a happy memory of when you felt most comfortable in your gender or most accepted as your gender by those around you.

When I was at the hospital getting approval for beginning hormone therapy. I wasn't aware it would be so invasive and I was still presenting as male (still am unfortunately) but I was wearing a bra with silicone breast forms. I was so embarrassed when he was checking my lungs under my shirt, and more so when he had me remove my pants and underwear to examine my genitals. It freaked me out so much, I almost ran away. Then he had a nurse come in to give me an ECG ... with my shirt off (still in bra and forms). While I was having a mini panic attack, she was just chatting away like nothing was out of the ordinary as she lifted my 'breasts' out of the way to place a couple of the electrodes. I count it as my only win because she never showed any negative judgement or anything like that. I started crying a little bit because I wanted to thank her SO much but was too afraid to bring it up. She even complimented me on my nail polish while she worked.


Gender Struggles: Tell about a time when circumstances would not allow, or you had to make sacrifices, to remain true to your gender.

My entire life up to now to be honest. Any time I expressed my true gender as a child at home or at school I was teased, bullied, punished. Even now I am in a situation where I am living with my parents and I keep getting looks from them for even the littlest things, like shaping my eyebrows, or painting my nails. The looks make me feel so incredibly uncomfortable I don't dare do more. I can't even talk to them about it, they shut down. I have no friends I could go to for comfort or a safe place to be "me". I'm not even sure anymore if I would know how to be "me" if I wanted to.


Humanist Involvement: Suggest something the humanist community could do to make a positive impact on your personal quality of life.


I, admittedly, don't know much of anything about the humanist community, but if I could make a wish, it would be for someone to help me set up a fund to raise money for things like getting my mouth repaired, voice therapy, FFS (facial feminization  surgery), top surgery, and possibly bottom surgery. I know it sounds like that show extreme make-over and it kind of is... just without it being broadcast on television. But I don't have much hope of anything like that happening for me. I don't have the luck.

I guess the most I could realistically hope for is raised awareness for the transgender community. So there would be less of a stigma attached to being trans*.


How You Identify (optional): Name, age, gender, location, ethnicity, anything you deem relevant.

I identify as female. My chosen name is Valérie Annette Lovelle. I am 34 years old. I live in south-eastern Wisconsin (Milwaukee). I am caucasion.

Survey results shared with permission.

HOTT

Q: Here's a hypothetical scenario. If you got into a relationship with a "women" and you had sex with this "women". A few months later you find out this "women" was not born a women. What would be your reaction?

A: OK, I'll hold back the laughter for long enough to (unfortunately) validate this question with a response:
HOT.
Because anyone I'm in a relationship with and having sex with is HOT, so therefore any aspect of their past that contributed to their present state is also HOT.
Hell, I'll even add an extra T for emphasis on how HOTT the people are to me that I choose to be with.
Also, the "scare quotes" don't emphasize anything but your insecurity.

Transphobia Defined

Sometimes people use "transphobia" when they mean "bigotry toward trans people". But this post... this is pretty much the definition of transphobia, and honestly of paranoia in general.

Starting with the title: Are Boys Turning in to Girls Because of Man Made Chemicals? Wow. Total fearmongering here. Scary emasculation! Scary chemicals! Scary science!

Then the tagline: Cases of accelerated puberty in young girls and the "transgender" phenomenon) are occurring with increasing frequency.  Seriously? First, what's with the hovering parenthesis? Second, why is "transgender" in scare-quotes? Oh right, fearmongering. Cus it would be too much to admit that transgender people are real people living real experiences. Got it.

Then the image. It's so horrible I won't even post it here, but here's the URL if you dare: http://s3.amazonaws.com/readers/2010/09/01/a1_1.jpg Basically, it's a heavy-set balding hairy person wearing a corset and holding a cigar. They went out of their way to think of the least "mainstream attractive" male body-type they could imagine, then added breasts and female undergarments to it. Presenting this as their representative sample image is transphobic and dehumanizing to boot. (And seriously, who even walks around in their undergarments anyway?)

What follows is a lot of science mixed with pseudoscience jargon mixed with more transphobia mixed with plenty of the naturalistic fallacy. But don't worry, they have a bulleted list:

• Educate yourself,your family and friends about endocrine disruptors.
• Use organic pesticides and fertilizers.
• Do not give young children soft plastic teether or toys
• Buy organic food Whenever possible
• Do not store  fatty foods or water in plastic containers. Use glass article were ever possible.
• It is better to use natural estrogen replacement for men who require hormone replacement therapy.

You can hear the silent "or your girls will turn into sluts and your boys will grow up to be skirt-wearing fags!!1!" at the end of each line.  Someone pass me a barf bag.