Mitch Ellis
Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Author
Member Since
August 2013
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Manning Up: Transexual Men on Finding Brotherhood, Family and Themselves
by
6 editions
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published
2014
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REC*OG*NIZE: The Voices of Bisexual Men
by
2 editions
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published
2014
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Spoke: New Queer Voices
by
2 editions
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published
2015
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Connected: What Remains as We All Change
by
2 editions
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published
2013
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* Note: these are all the books on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ for this author. To add more, click here.
“That night I looked Stephanie [Burt] up online and started reading more about her work...I kept encountering a striking factoid...: she’s often cited as the most influential poetry critic of her generation. And she’s openly trans. This is not the world I was taught I would grow into when I was a young trans child -- the one where transgender people are heard, are brilliant, are influential, are even the best. At anything. Being trans, I’d learned subliminally, was supposed to keep you from being that -- even if you loved your trans self, and even if some other trans people and a few allies did too, the world at large would keep your potential tamped down."
- from "Surface Difficulty: An Adventure in Reading Trans Poetry," Original Plumbing Magazine 2014”
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- from "Surface Difficulty: An Adventure in Reading Trans Poetry," Original Plumbing Magazine 2014”
―
“We’re at this really unique time, I think, in trans representation in popular culture where homelessness, depression, mental health issues, instability-in-general are still so very real and need to be talked about, but we’re aware that they’ve dominated “transâ€� stories for years and years.
And we’re now finally at a place where we’re seeing some really positive representations of trans folks in pop culture, and there’s this new pressure -- at least, I feel it, within trans and trans-ally communities -- to only focus on the positive. Because we’re trying, in some sense, to overcompensate for the years and years of too much negativity. As a writer, you might feel a pressure to push the negative stuff away. But there are consequences for that too. Anyone who’s working with trans characters right now is going to have to reconcile that tension.”
―
And we’re now finally at a place where we’re seeing some really positive representations of trans folks in pop culture, and there’s this new pressure -- at least, I feel it, within trans and trans-ally communities -- to only focus on the positive. Because we’re trying, in some sense, to overcompensate for the years and years of too much negativity. As a writer, you might feel a pressure to push the negative stuff away. But there are consequences for that too. Anyone who’s working with trans characters right now is going to have to reconcile that tension.”
―
“Books were irreplaceable to me as a teenage trans person trying to figure out my identity. I bought or borrowed every one I could find, and the feeling of being reflected–as well as being challenged by learning how differently others live their lives–was integral to finding myself as a trans man. I believe many trans people still look to books to help them see themselves or expand their world. There’s something more lasting, more visceral about interacting with a book full of narratives, rather than reading blog posts or advice columns online. There will always be a place for trans books.”
―
―
“We’re at this really unique time, I think, in trans representation in popular culture where homelessness, depression, mental health issues, instability-in-general are still so very real and need to be talked about, but we’re aware that they’ve dominated “transâ€� stories for years and years.
And we’re now finally at a place where we’re seeing some really positive representations of trans folks in pop culture, and there’s this new pressure -- at least, I feel it, within trans and trans-ally communities -- to only focus on the positive. Because we’re trying, in some sense, to overcompensate for the years and years of too much negativity. As a writer, you might feel a pressure to push the negative stuff away. But there are consequences for that too. Anyone who’s working with trans characters right now is going to have to reconcile that tension.”
―
And we’re now finally at a place where we’re seeing some really positive representations of trans folks in pop culture, and there’s this new pressure -- at least, I feel it, within trans and trans-ally communities -- to only focus on the positive. Because we’re trying, in some sense, to overcompensate for the years and years of too much negativity. As a writer, you might feel a pressure to push the negative stuff away. But there are consequences for that too. Anyone who’s working with trans characters right now is going to have to reconcile that tension.”
―
“When trying to comprehend what is happening to, and through, oneself, why not question the narratives one has been handed to make sense with? This is an approach increasingly utilized within transgender knowledge production, one spearheaded by transgender people themselves. It brings to light questions about previous entries into the trans nonfiction canon, asking: Is it necessary, when writing a trans protagonist, to describe in detail a medical transition, to 'confess' conflicted feelings of body confusion? Has it even been internalized into a communal consciousness, into something resembling a trans storytelling requirement?”
―
―
“That night I looked Stephanie [Burt] up online and started reading more about her work...I kept encountering a striking factoid...: she’s often cited as the most influential poetry critic of her generation. And she’s openly trans. This is not the world I was taught I would grow into when I was a young trans child -- the one where transgender people are heard, are brilliant, are influential, are even the best. At anything. Being trans, I’d learned subliminally, was supposed to keep you from being that -- even if you loved your trans self, and even if some other trans people and a few allies did too, the world at large would keep your potential tamped down."
- from "Surface Difficulty: An Adventure in Reading Trans Poetry," Original Plumbing Magazine 2014”
―
- from "Surface Difficulty: An Adventure in Reading Trans Poetry," Original Plumbing Magazine 2014”
―
“The term “FTM-Butch Border Warâ€� just sounds like an alien land of yore. How is it that the gravitational pull of my beard and low-voice should hold [my lesbian friend's] masculinity in deferential orbit? That when standing side-by-side we are supposedly read in comparison, rendering her unalterably more feminine—shorthand, in patriarchal societies, for “lesser thanâ€�?
Masculinity has more than enough space to spare. But sometimes its flesh-and-blood vessels act as if we have to wound each other for it, like dogs fighting over too few scraps. Anyway, [she] and I know without speaking that in reality, right here and right now in our present moment, that she and I are two different sides of the same coin; two keys sung for the same tune."
- from "Snapshots: "Sharing Space with Women," Original Plumbing Magazine 2014”
―
Masculinity has more than enough space to spare. But sometimes its flesh-and-blood vessels act as if we have to wound each other for it, like dogs fighting over too few scraps. Anyway, [she] and I know without speaking that in reality, right here and right now in our present moment, that she and I are two different sides of the same coin; two keys sung for the same tune."
- from "Snapshots: "Sharing Space with Women," Original Plumbing Magazine 2014”
―
“Books were irreplaceable to me as a teenage trans person trying to figure out my identity. I bought or borrowed every one I could find, and the feeling of being reflected–as well as being challenged by learning how differently others live their lives–was integral to finding myself as a trans man. I believe many trans people still look to books to help them see themselves or expand their world. There’s something more lasting, more visceral about interacting with a book full of narratives, rather than reading blog posts or advice columns online. There will always be a place for trans books.”
―
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For discussion of books about transgendered people or topics, or of interest to transgendered populations, including SOFFAs.