Welcome to another episode of the Shit Cis People Say Alphabet! Today: I is for “identity politics” Like last week’s post, this one isn’t just a thing that cis people use against trans people – it’s a pretty common thing used by the privileged against members of any marginalized group whenever we try to speak about our experiences. We’re accused of engaging in ‘identity politics’, which is apparently a bad thing? [ 189 more words ]

http://valprehension.com/…/the-shit-cis-people-say-alphabet…

I'm really happy about this month's prompt, because it helped me realize that a bunch of thoughts I've been having lately are worth writing down. As I mentioned in a past Carnival post, I have a strange sense of identity with respect to asexual community/ies, in that even though I am comfortable with my a-spec, demisexual identity, I feel like my role with respect to asexuality is more akin to allyship than anything else. [ 367 more words ]

http://valprehension.com/…/my-best-parts-of-ace-communities…

Welcome to another episode of the Shit Cis People Say Alphabet! Today: H is for "how do you have sex?" This question? It’s not even just relevant to trans people – it’s a common question directed at LGBQ+ folks as well. The clearest answer in most cases (unless you’re planning on having sex with the person asking it, I guess?) is ‘um, none of your darn business.’ It is kind of amazing how simply being trans can open a person up to the kinds of invasive questions that they would never dream of asking in any other context. [ 325 more words ]

http://valprehension.com/…/the-shit-cis-people-say-alphabet…

There was a strange thing that happened in my head a bunch over the summer and fall last year, that I have never thought to write about until just now. I think I only mentioned it out loud to one person, even, when it was happening. My internal monologue kept slipping into the voice of the my younger self. And while I know that's a very accurate way of describing the experience, I'm not 100% sure what I mean by it. [ 625 more words ]

http://valprehension.com/20…/…/18/self-identity-past-present

Just a lil post to let y'all know that the person I've been referring to as "former spouseperson" (formerly just "spouseperson" (formerly "my spouse" (formerly called by a gendered spousal term because that's how long I've been wriuting this blog :P))) will henceforth be known as my "complicated lifeperson". Because titles are hard sometimes, but that's what feels right. That is all.

http://valprehension.com/2017/01/16/blog-notes-nomenclature

Welcome to another episode of the Shit Cis People Say Alphabet! Today: G is for "grammatically incorrect" This one is mostly specifically about non-binary people, rather than trans people in general. Those of us whose pronoun is the singular they, (and possibly those of us who use neo-pronouns of various kinds) are all tired of hearing that our pronouns are 'grammatically incorrect'. [ 230 more words ]

http://valprehension.com/…/the-shit-cis-people-say-alphabet…

Let's see how this year sized up compared to the last: Work-related stuff In March of this year, I landed my first permanent public library gig! My permanent position is casual (i.e. less than 20hrs/wk), but thanks in part to being a union member now, since late September I've been filling in for a full-time position. I will be full-time until at least August 2017, though I expect I'll actually move into a better permanent position by then. [ 836 more words ]

https://valprehension.wordpress.com/…/11/reflections-on-2016

Welcome to another episode of the Shit Cis People Say Alphabet! Today: F is for "fake genders" Cis people sometimes like to refer to trans people's genders -and particularly non-binary genders - as being ‘fake’ or ‘made-up’. As if their own genders are somehow natural, and not simply the accumulation of generations of social conceptions of what gender is and means, right? [ 292 more words ]

https://valprehension.wordpress.com/…/the-shit-cis-people-s…

Your monthly digest of non-Valprehension writings from yours truly! Book Reviews Zoe Whittall's The Best Kind of People Book Lists Canadian Women Novelists (For Teens) Dystopia! (For Teens) Ghost Stories (For Kids) Eat Your Vegetables! More of the other stuff I've written!

https://valprehension.wordpress.com/…/other-things-ive-been…

Welcome to another episode of the Shit Cis People Say Alphabet! Today: E is for "everyone feels that way" …This is a strange one, to be honest. But it sometimes happens, particularly in more explicitly TERF-y spaces, that some cis person will try to argue that trans people aren’t really trans, we’re just misunderstanding what gender is like for everyone. [ 405 more words ]

https://valprehension.wordpress.com/…/the-shit-cis-people-s…

I have a... very strange and contradictory relationship to my personal privacy. On the one hand, I have been blogging pretty regularly, for almost four years now(!), about all kinds of extremely 'private' thoughts and feelings, around my gender, sexuality, and all kinds of other things. I have also been systematically pulling my blogging persona and my general IRL persona closer together as the years have passed. [ 609 more words ]

https://valprehension.wordpress.com/…/am-i-a-private-person…

Welcome to another episode of the Shit Cis People Say Alphabet! Today: D is for "devil's advocate" This one isn't actually specific to cis people - it's the sort of thing that people in a position of relative privilege love to pull out in the face of any marginalized person or people fighting to make their lives better. Privileged folks love to play 'devil's advocate', and it's sort of a softer, more plausibly deniable version of someone starting a conversational point with 'I'm not transphobic, but...'. [ 138 more words ]

https://valprehension.wordpress.com/…/the-shit-cis-people-s…

Last week at work, I found myself in an extended conversation with one of my colleagues about the work she’s been doing around the fact that her non-binary sibling-in-law will be coming to her family’s xmas stuff this year, and all of the various and sundry terrible responses she has had to push back against. It was the perfect moment for me to come out! [ 556 more words ]

https://valprehension.wordpress.com/…/golden-opportunity-mi…

Welcome to another episode of the Shit Cis People Say Alphabet! Today: C is for "Cis is a slur" Ok, this one is admittedly a little complex. First and foremost, cis (which is short for cisgender) is a descriptor – saying that someone is cis just means that they identify as the gender they were assigned at birth, simple as that! [ 1,234 more word ]

https://valprehension.wordpress.com/…/the-shit-cis-people-s…

I've added a shiny new tab to the menu: Blog Series! From here you can get to a listing of my (past and current) blogging series. There's also a separate sub-page for each series. I don't really know why this gets a whole post about, but whatever. It was a lot of work no my part, so! In any case, this will make some stuff easier to find or refer back to if any of y'all ever want to(!?!?!?) This is the sort of stuff I do when I feel bad about not writing as much as I'd like, tbh. But anyway:

https://valprehension.wordpress.com/…/blog-notes-new-series…