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soap-is-an-artist · 3 hours ago

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Successful trans men

I wish I knew about men like these growing up, I wish I knew that trans men could be successful after a lifetime of never seeing anyone ‘like me’ excelling in life. So here are some trans men - some that you may have heard of, some that you may not - that are successful in a range of careers. Never let being trans hold you back, never think you can’t do something, never think there is not a place for you.

Ben Barres American neurobiologist for Stanford University and advocate for women in science. Barre’s research on the interactions between glial cells and neurons changed the way that we understand the brain and opened up a whole new field of research.

Stephen Whittle Professor of equalities law. Founder of FTM Network in 1989 and Press for Change in 1992. Whittle has been heavily involved in trans activism since joining the Self Help Association for Transsexuals in 1979. His research and activism has been instrumental in ensuring the rights of trans people in the UK.

Michael D Cohen Actor, teacher and coach. Making his break in award-winning Nickelodeon sitcoms Harvey Danger and Danger Force he was the first series regular actor to publicly come out as transgender. Cohen has a BSc in cell biology and a masters degree in adult education, teaching at his own acting studio and providing workshops.

Chris Mosier American triathlete and award-winning coach. Six time member of Team USA in both duathlon and triathlon, Mosier also won two national championships in racewalking and was the first transgender athlete to qualify for the Olympic trials to compete against other members of his gender.

Yance Ford African-American film producer and director. Ford received an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking and was nominated for an Oscar for his part in producing and directing the documentary Strong Island which follows the death of his brother.

Kael McKenzie Canadian judge. Serving in the Canadian Armed Forces for several years, McKenzie later attended law school and and worked as a lawyer before being appointed as a judge to the Provincial Court of Manitoba in 2015.

Shane Ortega Native American former flight engineer in the US army, former marine and professional bodybuilder. Throughout his career Ortega has served in Iraq and Afghanistan in over 400 combat missions. He has a long history of advocating for the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the recent banning on transgender service members in the US army.

Drago Renteria Chicano photojournalist and deaf and LGBT activist. Renteria founded the Deaf Queer Resource and is CEO of DeafVision - a webhosting and development company run by deaf people and the founder of the National Deaf LGBTQ Archives. Renteria has been instrumental in both creating and hosting many online deaf/queer spaces online along with being heavily involved in real-world activism for decades.

Phillipe Cunningham Elected city councillor for ward 4 Minneapolis and previous special education teacher, Cunningham holds a masters degrees in Organizational Leadership & Civic Engagement and in Police Administration and is passionate about tacking inequalities in his community.

#important #trans people can thrive

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soap-is-an-artist · 17 hours ago

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MMMMMM THE DEVELOPMENT!!! YEAHHAHAHAH

the world (it burns through me)

Chapter 15: Darlin'

Ao3 | 2.6k Words | Darlin's POV

Sam ambushes Darlin'. Milo gets them ready. Darlin' looks in the mirror. Milo and Sweetheart go out to dinner. Sam and Darlin' too, in their own way.

TW: discussions of childhood poverty, discussions of disordered eating and malnourishment.

Sam decided to ambush you with the question on a call. It was a dirty trick, one that worked remarkably well on you, given that, when the words came out of his mouth, you’d nodded dumbly while loading the hoses back onto the rig. You didn’t even process until halfway back to the station what exactly he had asked you.

“Holy shit!” You barked as you were tossed by Asher’s wild turns. Milo’s head whipped to you, concern painting his features.

“What’s wrong?” David snapped from the front, twisting in his seat to look at you. You flushed, suddenly faced with the horror of having to tell David Shaw that your… your Sam had asked you out on a date. You blushed like a teenager having to explain to their dad why their outfit was rumpled after junior prom.

“Nothing.” You said quickly, staring straight ahead again. You did not want to have this conversation, especially not when you had to have it over the radio to be heard over the rumble of the engines. You would actually rather throw yourself in front of the rig than air your not-so-dirty laundry for the entire rig to hear.

You pulled into the station a few minutes later and you were up and off the truck before anybody could ask you questions. You had less than about twenty minutes left in your shift, and you had two hours after that before you needed to meet Sam for dinner. He’d thrown out the name of a restaurant, but it was in some foreign language and sounded ten times more fancy than what you were used to. You were fairly certain that you’d be kicked out wearing your DFD shirt and joggers, but that wasn’t something you had control of at the moment.

David wouldn’t mind if you hit the showers so long as you got to the rig within three minutes of the bell ringing. You could go from naked and soaking wet to geared up and still soaking wet in a very short amount of time.

“Hey-” Milo caught your arm as you dumped your turnouts and spun you around. “What’s up? You’re acting weird.” You scowled, rolling your eyes.

“Fuck off.” You muttered. “I’m not. I’m fine.”

“Sure.” Milo snorted. “Yeah. For sure.”

“Shut up.” You growled. “I’m gonna shower.”

“Twenty minutes.” David admonished from the rig. He tugged at the velcro of his turnouts, face drawn. He had started looking worse and worse recently. Quinn had gone radio silent, having not sent another picture since the night you’d told David. You could tell that the absence was worse than the present threat for David. If Quinn was standing in front of him, David would have somewhere to point his focus. As it was, he was a tired guard dog, jerking and biting at every shift and shadow.

You swallowed your guilt. You’d put him in this place, this state. You nodded sharply.

“Come on,” Milo bumped his shoulder with yours, giving you his best puppy dog eyes. Stupid, pretty brown eyes. You were such a sucker for assholes like Milo. “Share with the class.”

You puffed out your breath sharply through your nose and turned away from David. When you admitted it to Milo, it was quiet, secretive.

“Sam asked me on a date.” You felt embarrassingly like a high schooler when you said it, and cringed back from your own voice.

“What?” Milo shouted, so much louder than your admission had been. David grumbled his disapproval from his position a few feet away. Milo ignored him and turned to face you square on, grabbing your shoulders in each hand. “Where?”

“I don’t know.” You sighed. “Some fancy place. Some sort of… French? Name?”

“La Récolte?” Milo demanded, his voice cracking with disbelief. “I’ve been trying to get into that place for months!”

“I don’t know man, he’s taking me.” You shook yourself out of his grasp and started moving towards the showers. You were feeling distinctly vulnerable talking about this out in the open. You wanted a wall at your back if you were going to keep spilling your guts to him.

“Well when’s your reservation?”

“He just told me he’d pick me up at six.”

“Okay, good, that gives us some time.”

“Time?” You came to a stop and turned, facing Milo down. “Time for what?”

“Well, I don’t think you have shit to wear to a place like La Récolte.” Milo rolled his eyes like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “So you’ll come over and borrow something from me.”

“I’m like… half a foot taller than you.” You laughed. Milo shoved your shoulder to turn you back around.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, I’m sure we’ll figure something out.” He said as he started bodily pushing you towards the showers. “At the very least, we need you not to smell like fucking smoke.”

In the end, Milo did find something in his near endless closet for you to wear. You weren’t sure how he afforded all of those clothes on a firefighter’s salary, but you couldn’t knock him for liking fine things. You knew that, much like yourself, Milo hadn’t come from much. He had wanted plenty as a kid, and he found a way not to anymore. You couldn’t deny a man a thousand fancy suits if it meant he got to step away from that ever present need that lingered in you from your childhood. You wondered if it crept up in him anyway.

He had a loose, maroon suit that he hadn’t had the time to go get hemmed yet, so the pants only hung about an inch above your ankles. He produced a pair of his boots to go with it and hopefully hide that gap, but you couldn’t shove your foot in them no matter how much you tried. In the end, the two of you settled on you wearing his suit but your boots, no matter how scuffed and dirty they were.

You stripped out of your DFD uniform, the heather grey t-shirt and fitted pants abandoned on Milo’s bathroom floor as you avoided your reflection in his giant, full body mirror. You could picture him and his partner, preening over each other's pretentious outfits and unfair good looks in this mirror. Your eyes slid to him in the background as he plucked a white shirt out from his collection to bring to you. As he turned, his eyes met yours in the mirror, caught you staring. You cut your gaze away.

You were forced to look at yourself in the mirror, stripped down to your indecents, and squinted hard. You realized, as you cut your focus across your form, that you hadn’t really looked at your reflection in a long while. Your hair was longer. The stab wound that Sam had stitched up had settled into a neat, puffy scar on your abdomen. Your hand fell to your stomach, which had been concave and aching for a few months before you returned to Dahlia. Now, it was soft and full. The lines of your abs weren’t as stark. You couldn’t see the curve of your ribs. You weren’t just muscle and skin and bone and blood. You pressed the pads of your fingers into the tender skin, felt it recoil gently.

“Huh,” you breathed. Milo’s eyes flicked up to you, brow quirked, the spitting image of his mother.

“What?” He asked. He tossed his chosen button up to you.

“No just… I’ve gained some weight.” You shrugged. You tugged the shirt on, began to button it.

“Is that a…” Milo’s voice trailed off, his tone smothered in trepidation.

“Not a bad thing.” You shook your head as you adjusted the already starched collar. “Just a… thing. I don’t know.”

“You looked half dead when you first got back to town.” You thought he was probably trying for a joke, but his voice betrayed him, painted a clear picture of the fear and worry your state had caused him.

“Guess I am looking a bit less skeletal these days, huh?” You found the punch line for him. He chuckled, shaking his head.

The suit didn’t look half bad on you, especially when Milo fussed over your hair and draped you in one of his gold chains and a few of his rings. You had tried to refuse the jewelry, but he had insisted that he couldn’t stand a look unfinished. You ended up agreeing just to get him to shut up.

Sam knocked on Milo’s front door at six on the dot, right as Milo finished his ‘detail work’ as he called it. He rushed for the door before you could and threw it open, grinning as Sam stepped in.

“Well, don’t you look handsome.” Milo cooed, brushing his hand over the shoulder of Sam’s navy suit. You stepped out from the bedroom and took him in.

The suit was obviously tailored, and it fit him like a fucking glove. The trousers lined his long legs and scooped around his hips tantalizingly. You trailed your eyes over the line of his jacket as he fixed the top button, fingers shaking and struggling for just a moment before he got it. The buttons were big, probably to combat that very problem. His white shirt was perfect and unbuttoned just enough to show off a brush of chest hair, dotted with grey.

You were drooling. You closed your mouth and swallowed.

Sam’s eyes trailed over you for a moment before he smiled, teeth sharp and sinful.

“Fancy place, right?” You rasped, suddenly self conscious. You fiddled with the hem of your suit jacket.

“Yes.” Sam’s eyes flicked to the chain around your neck for a moment before meeting yours again. “Yes, it’s a fancy place. You look perfect.” He realized that he had revealed too much, his face flushing as he cleared his throat.

“Oh-kay,” Milo clapped his hand on Sam’s shoulder. “You crazy kids had better get going. I want no funny business, young man, and you better have ‘em home by midnight or so help me-”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam rolled his eyes and shoved Milo half-heartedly. You stepped between them, linked your arm with Sam’s when he offered it.

Sam’s truck was nice. His suit was fitted and probably cost more than everything you owned. He was taking you to a place Milo was longing to get into.

One of these people was not like the other.

You gripped your hand into a fist as he pulled up outside of the restaurant. It was a small, black building with its name emblazoned in backlit silver lettering. A kid in his twenties wearing a three piece suit ran up to the driver’s side door as Sam threw his truck into park and stepped out. Somebody opened your door and extended a gloved hand to help you out of the car.

You froze, staring at that extended hand. You did not belong here.

“Darlin’,” Sam’s voice cut through the fog that was overtaking your mind, “you okay?” You turned to look at him, and your face must have betrayed you, because his expression softened, brow down turned as he examined you with the intensity of a healer.

“Fine.” You said quickly. Sam was taking you- you- out to a fancy place. He wanted to be seen in public with you. He wanted to parade you around in a borrowed, ill-fitting suit like you were some fucking prize to be won. You wouldn’t ruin the night for him because you felt out of place.

“No.” He shook his head, sitting back in the driver’s seat. “No, you’re not.” You sneered, turned away from him. You didn’t want him to read anything else from your face like you were an open fucking book.

“I’m fine.” You reiterated. The valet tutted softly and made a big show of looking back at the line that had gathered behind Sam’s truck. You wanted to pull your hair out. You wanted to find some place to hide. “Seriously.”

“Do you wanna go somewhere else?” Sam asked softly. “If you… Darlin’ I won’t drag you in here if you’re uncomfortable.”

You looked up at him, face closed off. His brown eyes stared back at you, unwavering.

He was serious.

“Yeah.” You said. You felt that wall you’d thrown up crumble, just a bit. “I mean… as long as you won’t… like I don’t want to cost you money.”

“It’s fine.” Sam shook his head and pulled his door close. He gave the attendant that had opened your door a pointed look until they closed it. “Don’t you worry about that.” He cranked the truck and peeled out of the parking lot. Your chest eased. “Where do ya want to go?”

“I’m not… I don’t eat out much.” You admitted. You jerked and dug into your suit pocket to retrieve your phone. “Sorry, one sec, let me-” you scrolled through your contacts and called Milo.

He answered quickly, like he’d been sitting and waiting for you to report back.

“What’s wrong?” He demanded, voice strained.

“Nothing.” You said quickly. “Look, if you can get to La Whatever-the-fuck before seven the reservation’s yours. It’s under-”

“Solaire.” Sam provided.

“Solaire.”

“You’re serious?” Milo squealed. You smiled.

“Yeah. Wine and dine your sweetheart before I do.” Something crashed on the other end of the line and you heard Milo call their name across the house. You hung up in the middle of his stream of ‘thank-you’s.

In the end, the two of you parked outside of a Seven Eleven and browsed the fluorescent aisles for dinner. You found out, in that shitty, near empty gas station, that Sam snorted when he laughed too hard. That he preferred original Cheetos to flaming ones. That he wasn’t afraid of a gas station hot dog, no matter how many horrors he’d seen in his time in the ER. That he loved root beer, which was a crime you just couldn’t forgive.

You carried your haul back out to the parking lot and sat, shoulder to shoulder, knees pressing together, on the curb, eating your shitty snacks and trying to put a dent in your Big Gulps.

“Thanks.” You said softly, mouth still half-full of your third hot dog. “For… yeah. Thanks.”

“Course.” Sam answered easily. He seemed lighter, less tense than he had when he picked you up. He looked fucking good in that suit (so fucking good, God, you wanted to take it off with your teeth), but he also looked… uncomfortable. Probably about how you looked. “I don’t want you feeling out of place.” He shrugged, like accommodating your bullshit was the easiest thing in the world for him. “Besides, that place is more Vincent’s speed.” He laughed softly.

“Oh, I can see that.” You grinned. “Pretty princess eating eight tiny French bullshit courses.”

“And don’t forget lavender flavored air for dessert.”

You waggled a twinkie in front of Sam’s face. “I’ll take this any day.”

Sam laughed, snagged the twinkie from your hand. You chased after it as he leaned away until you were practically in his lap. Your eyes met his, his hand fell to your hip. He kissed you for the first time since New Years, and his touch still made you feel like you were crashing down through the atmosphere, like you were burning up and falling apart.

Maybe you could forgive the root beer if you could always taste it on his tongue.

“Yeah,” Sam gasped when you broke apart, his forehead pressed to yours, eyes closed serenely. “Me too.”

#omg omg ong omh #YAY YAY YAY DARLIN ANF SAM BONDIBG AND GETTING TO KNOW EAVH OTHERRRT #i would also want to die if i went to a fancy as fuck restaraunt like that.. i get you darlin that shits weird #Omggg theyre EVERYTHING YOU WRITE THEM SO WELL!!!#ffau

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