YouTube video by Reclaim Our Names

YouTube video by Reclaim Our Names

YouTube video by Reclaim Our Names

YouTube video by Reclaim Our Names

YouTube video by Reclaim Our Names

Nic wrote the following poem to honor a college friend who died by suicide last year. Nic's poem, "hear them caw," reflects their feelings of loss, paying tribute to their friend’s dancing and love of crows. "hear them caw" By Nic i hear them cawing on the streetscalling out between treesas their wings push against the air i heard your cawing across the quad…

YouTube video by Reclaim Our Names

and more importantly: a response to all the cis people responding to the way that trans people are responding to said Democrats’ responses

YouTube video by Reclaim Our Names

YouTube video by Reclaim Our Names

YouTube video by Reclaim Our Names

YouTube video by Reclaim Our Names

YouTube video by Reclaim Our Names

YouTube video by Reclaim Our Names

As she floated above her adoring fans, like a goddess speaking down to mere mortals, Beyoncé concluded one of her 2023 Renaissance concerts with a quick acknowledgement of one audience member's sign that read "Trans is Beautiful." Queer fans celebrated Beyoncé's reading of the sign, with LGBTQIA+ media describing the act as "declaring 'trans is beautiful'" and that "Beyoncé shows trans support." Even Laverne Cox, the Black trans activist, actor, and author who…

YouTube video by Reclaim Our Names

Recently, a former colleague from University of Richmond dined at the vegan restaurant I've been working at for the past 18 months. I didn't immediately recognize them, but as I felt them stare at me from the booth they'd chosen to sit in, it slowly clicked within my brain who they might be. I snuck a quick internet search on my phone to confirm my hunch, but they noticed and seemed to perk up with eager excitement.

YouTube video by Reclaim Our Names

A stranger commented on my latest YouTube video speaking about my history of suicidality, something along the lines of "I also was targeted for bullying because I was a boy with breasts, but it didn't make me suicidal -- but I guess it did for you because you have a mental disorder." I deleted his comment the second I saw it and then closed comments on my YouTube channel.

The Problem with 988: How America’s Largest Hotline Violates Consent, Compromises Safety, and Fails the People This report critically examines the 988

</br/>International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry 2025 Qualitative Book Award<br/> </br/>2024 International Association of Autoethnography and Narrative Inquiry Outstanding Book Award (Honorable Me...

The "am I trans enough?" impostor syndrome is back. What authority do I -- a non-binary-identified person who otherwise is read and privileged as a cis man -- have to launch a platform aimed at uplifting trans self-determination? A parallel dilemma is doing racial justice and Black feminist work as a "florescent beige" mixed-Black person often mistaken for (and probably privileged) as a white man.

Recently, a co-worker recently made reference to "grippy socks" in the midst of a conversation about mental illness -- a common topic over which workers in the restaurant industry trauma bond. I stopped sweeping beneath the large fridge, shooting up straight to make eye contact with her. "What do you know about 'grippy socks'?" I demanded, searching my memory for stories of stays in a hospital psychiatric ward that she might have previously shared.

August 13, 2024 Look at Me! I left barely a scratch on the inside of my left forearm. Just testing out my capacity to endure the pain and willingness to cut deeper. I used my right index finger, my nails uncomfortably long but neglected as with several things self-care these days. I actually didn’t intended to break the skin, but ended up leaving behind two small translucent ribbons of my skin.

September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. In recognition over the next few weeks (and beyond), The Reclaim Our Names! blog invites guest contributions from trans folx personally affected by suicide. We invite two-spirit, agender, trans, intersex, non-binary, and genderfluid people to submit original written work about or informed by the subject of suicidaity, including essays, short stories, poems, calls to action, manifestos, testimonios, brief and accessible academic pieces, etc.

Refusing To Be Silent I keep returning to the topic of going no-contact with my family despite feeling self-conscious about publishing my pain for public consumption. I can't shake one troll's complaint about how frequently I criticized my parents for not accepting me on an online platform disguised as a job market discussion board for sociologists. Estrangement was still years off, as was my consciousness-raising around being a survivor of child abuse.

The proverbial breaking my egg wasn’t actually the first time I thought of having a different name that may align with me better. My name-choosing journey didn’t involve burying a deadname, but rather a reconciliation with my birth name even as I chose a new, gender-affirming one.  Coming to Terms with My Name I have always been the quiet type, never wanting to stand out except having to because no one else can do the thing.

If you tried telling me -- when I was still a sociology &amp; gender studies professor studying the health-harming effects of discrimination -- that I'd one day use my latest research (on trans names) to debate the merits of a fictional, comic book character's name, well, I just wouldn't be able to imagine such a timeline or universe. But, I ended up staying up late last night, glued to posts on the Bluesky social media platform to follow discussion over a trans femme version of the character Spider-Man, named&hellip;