#jamie berrout

[have-you-read-this-short-fiction]

[haveyoureadthisqueerbook]

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

An Anthology of Fiction by Trans Women of Color edited by Ellyn Pena and Jamie Berrout

goodreads

This anthology is something new: a collection of stories written, edited, and self-published by trans women of color working collectively to equally share the fruits of our work.

The stories in this anthology confront major themes and issues in the lives of trans women of color with profound honesty and attention toward helping one another heal. A story like “The Girl and the Apple,” by Jasmine Kabale Moore, not only unflinchingly describes the sense of ever-present danger that many of us feel in public spaces (including the hyper-vigilant condition of trauma that results from repeated exposure to intense scrutiny and violence) it also provides invaluable emotional support to other trans women of color by accurately reflecting, and therefore validating, our experiences and our perceptions of reality.

A number of other stories explore their own kinds of traumas and begin to show us a way to survive them, a day at a time. In contrast, there are also stories in our anthology that take up a completely different subject matter – genre fantasies, memories and the past, self-acceptance, relationships with family and friends, romance and intimacy, and language itself – but they do so in the specific context of our lives as trans women of color.

Mod opinion: I haven't heard of this anthology before, but it sounds interesting and I'm hoping to get around to it at some point.

[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

[specialagentartemis]

you bring up women and female too much... feeling pretty terfy tbh

This is so fucking funny. As bait it’s like you’re not even Trying

(for context: transphobes just found my post about why it’s important to not spread historical misinformation and they are mad about it. This is from a transphobic radfem angry that I said trans people exist and existed in the past too.)

Shockingly I bring up women and being female because I am a woman and I care about feminism and women’s rights. I firmly believe most people should! Being a woman kind of makes it pressing in a certain way though.

I went through the whole gender questioning and gender exploration thing, thinking about gender and womanhood and femaleness and what they mean and how I relate to it and don’t. I was a tomboyish girl who liked to read and climb trees and hated shaving my legs and participating in gym class and was resentful and resistant to Rules but also enthralled by history and particularly suffragists and women who Did Things. But also, for a while, as I started to increasingly reaize I was queerer than I supposed and felt alienated from other girls my age, I felt pretty disconnected from womanhood; I didn’t know what it meant to me. I’m aromantic asexual, and that self-knowledge was hard-won and required a lot of soul searching and fear for the future and trying really hard to be allo and crying alone at the dining hall. And the question of “what is my gender for, anyway?” felt pertinent in that regard. If it’s not there to structure romantic/sexual attraction and relationships, what is it there for? What does it do for me?

Reading feminist texts by cis feminists was important for thinking about political organizing and political necessities of combating sexism and misogyny in its many pervasive and awful forms, but it didn’t really make me feel any more of a personal sense of womanhood. Political coalition building is not necessarily the same as personal sense of self, nor should it be.

You know what made me feel more secure in my gender? In feeling like A Woman?

Reading the work of trans lesbians.

I mean it. Reading trans women lesbians writing sci-fi stories about apocalypses and AIs and identity, and realistic stories about longing and coercion and freedom and joy and fear and just being, is what made me go, oh, this is it. This is what it’s all about, this is what it means to be a woman. You get it. And you make me feel it in a way I haven’t in a long time.

(I’m also an anthropologist. Thinking about human societies and social constructs and performances of identity is my job.)

But if you want to read the work of the trans woman who really made me feel comfortable and seen and resonant in my womanhood for the first time in a long time, I highly HIGHLY recommend Jamie Berrout and particularly her Portland Diary: Short Stories 2016/2017. They have a spark of brilliance. This Pride month treat yourself to these stories. (This is a direct download because unfortunately Berrout scrubbed her entire internet presence, including any place to legitimately buy her work, but I paid a fair price for these before she did, and I think they deserve to be read.)

(I won’t currently link the other trans woman writer who helped my through my Gender Epiphany, because unlike Berrout who has gone off the grid, she has an internet presence and I don’t want her to get targeted by any transphobes camping my page waiting for my response to their brilliantly crafted bait.)

TERFs, and some overzealous tumblr/twitter users, want so badly to believe that feminism and trans rights are at odds, that if you believe in one you can’t believe in the other. That’s bullshit, of course. My feminism is fully bound up in trans rights; non-discrimination by sex and gender means non-discrimination by sex and gender. Bodily autonomy and authority on one’s identity are the rights of everyone. We need to end sexism and part of ending sexism is ending the belief in gender essentialism; we need to end transphobia and part of ending transphobia means ending the idea that women can only be One Thing and men can only be One Thing and there are unbreachable distances between them. I believe in gender equality and that means the equality of all genders. And from personal experience, I believe that trans women have a lot to say about feminism and what it feels like to be a woman.

Also I have a lot of trans and non-binary friends and I like them much better and trust them much more than I like or trust transphobes. So.

Women’s rights are human rights. Trans rights are human rights. Trans rights are women’s rights. All of these things are true, and inextricable.

[familyabolisher]

just saw someone seriously claim - in response to people submitting AI stories to that sf litmag - that 'ideas' are meaningless and the value of literature is wholly located in 'execution' ... is that ... a position you want to commit to ...? is that a position it makes any sense to commit to at all? is asking key questions about the actual necessity of a naturalised meritocracy within literature not going to be the more fruitful approach here?

mum can you come pick me up they're using anti-AI to make nonsensical broad claims about the production and purpose and definition of 'art' again rather than using the logics of these claims to seriously rethink how we produce and engage with art under capitalism

[librarycards]

hi, do you happen to have any writings about gender written by transfem butches and/or transfem poc that you'd recommend?

Yes! first, I recommend checking out this post, where I recommend / crowdsource some readings on butch trans womanhood / TMA subjectivity. I also highly recommend Emi Koyama's blog/body of work, b. binaohan's numerous writings and books, and the Trans Woman Writer's Collective (founded by Jamie Berrout, a powerhouse author/editor in her own right). My friend Valerie (@grimesapologist) has an excellent pamphlet out with them!

Some transfem/trans woman/TMA (acknowledging that there is as much variation in gender among TMA people as TME people, though the former group are systemically foreclosed from gender creativity in ways TME people are, within queer and trans circles, marginally permitted) writers of color I recommend include

micha cárdenas

Meredith Talusan

Vivek Shraya

jia qing wilson-yang

Ryka Aoki

Jules Gill-Peterson

Kai Cheng Thom

Trish Salah

[I've linked to my personal favorite/most influential work by most of the listed authors]

There are some great, relevant readings in the anthology Trap Door: Trans Cultural Projection and the Politics of Visibility. Lastly, this paper, A Tranifesto For the Dolls in Transgender Studies Quarterly is something of a who's who in this cohort of junior scholars in trans/feminist of color theory. Very exciting piece based off a very exciting conference roundtable that I actually attended back in 2022!

hope this helps :)

[rollercoasterwords]

hey rae! you said you haven’t been reading many fics lately and i was wondering what were your favorite books you read this year :))

LOVE this question omg thank u 4 giving me an excuse 2 talk abt books <3 i'm gonna split this into fiction + nonfiction + poetry...will try 2 keep it somewhat concise but. fear it may get long...

fiction

the archive of alternate endings, by lindsey drager [favorite book i've read all year]

how to live safely in a science fictional universe, by charles yu

giovanni's room, by james baldwin

stone butch blues, by leslie feinberg

i'll give you the sun, by jandy nelson

and then i woke up, by malcolm devlin

on earth we're briefly gorgeous, by ocean vuong

cursed bunny, by bora chung

i have the right to destroy myself, by young-ha kim

infect your friends and loved ones, by torrey peters

the bloody chamber and other stories, by angela carter

at least we can apologize, by lee ki-ho

nonfiction

playing the whore: the work of sex work, by melissa gira grant

cistem failure: essays on blackness and cisgender, by marquis bey

gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity, by judith butler

essays against publishing, by jamie berrout

trans liberation: beyond pink or blue, by leslie feinberg

females, by andrea long chu

socialism: utopian and scientific, by friedrich engels

capitalist realism: is there no alternative? by mark fisher

whipping girl: a transsexual woman on sexism and the scapegoating of femininity, by julia serrano

poetry

soft science, by franny choi

grit, by silas denver melvin

in the pines, by alice notley

[transnovelsbracket]

This is the randomly-generated bracket for adult (i.e. non-YA) novels by trans authors! The books are as follows (in order of when I thought of them). Please boost this post! The first round will begin tomorrow, or as soon as I get at least a couple of reblogs on this.

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars, Kai Cheng Thom

Little Fish, Casey Plett

Small Beauty, jia qing wilson-yang

She Who Became The Sun, Shelley Parker-Chan

An Unkindness of Ghosts, Rivers Solomon

Future Feeling, Joss Lake

Confessions of the Fox, Jordy Rosenberg

Light From Uncommon Stars, Ryka Aoki

In The Watchful City, S. Qiouyi Lu

Detransition, Baby, Torrey Peters

Nevada, Imogen Binnie

Freshwater, Akwaeke Emezi

Summer Fun, Jeanne Thornton

Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, Andrea Lawlor

Yemaya's Daughters, Dane Figueroa Edidi

Manhunt, Gretchen Felker-Martin

The Thirty Names of Night, Zeyn Joukhadar

Machineries of Empire series, Yoon Ha Lee

The Tensorate series, Neon Yang

Sea Witch, Never Angeline Nørth

The Subtweet, Vivek Shraya

The Story of Silence, Alex Myers

Wrath Goddess Sing, Maya Deane

Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel, Julian K. Jarboe

Upright Women Wanted, Sarah Gailey

Darryl, Jackie Ess

The Four Profound Weaves RB Lemberg

Little Blue Encyclopedia, Hazel Jane Plante

Otros Valles, Jamie Berrout

the earthquake room, Davey Davis

The City in the Middle of the Night, Charlie Jane Anders

Running Down, Al Hess

[singing-river]

“Poetry as an infinite series of veils.”

— Jamie Berrout

[girl4pay]

also fav books/essays/etc i read this year

- the night is dark and i am far from home by jonathan kozol

- essays against publishing by jamie berrout tysm to whoever recced that

- honey girl by morgan rogers

- a small place by jamaica kincaid

- the burning god by r.f. kuang

- transformation of silence by audre lorde

and every video rian phin put out

[have-you-read-this-short-fiction]

[haveyoureadthisqueerbook]

books (assuming it’s okay to submit more than one):

Ángeles Vicente, Zezé (1909)

Rosa Guy, Ruby (1976)

Deborah Hautzig, Hey, Dollface (1978)

Samuel R. Delany, Tales of Nevèrÿon (1979)

Elizabeth A. Lynn, Watchtower (1979)

Nancy Garden, Annie on My Mind (1982)

Alice Walker, The Color Purple (1982)

John Preston, Franny, the Queen of Provincetown (1983)

Samuel R. Delany, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (1984)

Timothy Findley, Not Wanted on the Voyage (1984)

Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985)

Chrystos, Not Vanishing (1988)

Ian Iqbal Rashid, Black Markets, White Boyfriends, and Other Elisions (1991)

Crìsdean Whyte (Christopher Whyte), Uirsgeul / Myth (1991)

Carlos Sanrune, El gladiador de Chueca (1992)

Tom Lennon, When Love Comes to Town (1993)

Fernanda Farias de Albuquerque and Maurizio Jannelli, Princesa (1994)

Qiu Miaojin, Notes of a Crocodile (1994)

Shyam Selvadurai, Funny Boy (1994)

Gregory Maguire, Wicked (1995)

Christos Tsiolkas, Loaded (1995)

Nina Revoyr, The Necessary Hunger (1997)

Lola Van Guardia (Isabel Franc), Con pedigree (1997)

Tom Lennon, Crazy Love (1999)

Micheál Ó Conghaile, Sna Fir (1999)

Laurie J. Marks, Fire Logic (2002)

Nalo Hopkinson, The Salt Roads (2003)

Esdras Parra, Aún no (2004)

Barry McCrea, The First Verse (2005)

Manuel Tzoc, Gay(o) (2010)

Tama Wise, Street Dreams (2012)

Dane Figueroa Edidi, Yemaya’s Daughters (2013)

Jamie Berrout, Otros Valles (2014)

Niviaq Korneliussen, Homo sapienne (2014)

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, This Accident of Being Lost (2016)

Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler, Wrist (2016)

Trifonia Meliba Obono, La bastarda (2016)

Sofia Samatar, The Winged Histories (2016)

Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars (2016)

jia qing wilson-yang, Small Beauty (2016)

Billy-Ray Belcourt, This Wound Is a World (2017)

Elliot Cooper, Rogue Wolf (2017)

Kevin Lambert, Querelle de Roberval (2018)

Joshua Whitehead, Jonny Appleseed (2018)

Masande Ntshanga, Triangulum (2019)

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies (2020)

Tlotlo Tsamaase, The Silence of the Wilting Skin (2020)

Bendi Barrett, Empire of the Feast (2022)

Simon Jimenez, The Spear Cuts Through Water (2022)

Kōtuku Titihuia Nuttall, Tauhou (2022)

if you’d rather keep it to one book at a time: Samuel R. Delany, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (1984).

Thank you so much for this fantastic list! They're all queued.

[haveyoureadthistransbook]

Radical Trans Poetry by the Trans Women Writers' Collective

goodreads

What binds these poems together, where no ideology or common set of experiences or literary form does, is that they are profane works. In their speech and techniques as much as in their ideas these poems refuse to comply with the white supremacist vision of Poetry as something that is generated in the academy, as the pursuit of middle class liberal subjects who do not hesitate to call the police when their life-long search for catharsis is interrupted, as a magical realm outside of the capitalist mode of production.

Mod opinion: I haven't read this poetry collection yet, but I'm excited to check it out!

[ghelgheli]

The Stuff I Read In March 2023

stuff I Extra Liked is bolded

Books

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. Friedrich Engels

Essays Against Publishing. Jamie Berrout

Black Skin, White Masks. Franz Fanon

2001: A Space Odyssey. Arthur C Clarke

The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader

Blame! Vols 1-7. Nihei Tsutomu

قصه های من و بابا. جلد ۱ تا ۳

Short Fiction

Speech Sounds. Octavia Butler

The Thief of Memory. Sunyi Dean

Let's Play Dead. Senaa Ahmad

Description of a Struggle. Franz Kafka

Wedding Preparations in the Country. Franz Kafka

The Judgment. Franz Kafka

In the Penal Colony. Franz Kafka

Articles

The 9.9 Percent is the New American Aristocracy. Matthew Stewart in the Atlantic

You Are Not a Parrot and a Chatbot is Not a Human. Elizabeth Weil in New York Magazine

The Defeat of One's Own Government in the Imperialist War. Vladimir Lenin

Climbing towards NLU: On Meaning, Form, and Understanding in the Age of Data. Emily M. Bender & Alexander Koller. DOI: 10.18653/v1/2020.acl-main.463

On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots. Emily M. Bender et al. DOI: 10.1145/3442188.3445922

The biomedical model of mental disorder: A critical analysis of its validity, utility, and effects on psychotherapy research. Brett J. Deacon. DOI: 10.1016/j.cpr.2012.09.007

Do Not Teach Kafka's "In the Penal Colony". Peter Neumeyer.

Teaching Paradox, Europa Universalis IV series. (link to part one)

Niel DeGrasse Tyson and Al-Ghazali. Tim O'Neill. (link)

[specialagentartemis]

How dare you speak on gender, the thing that pervades everyone's lives. You must be a TERF because *checks notes* only TERFs talk about trans people? I mean I get what the anon was going for I guess, but that's a hell of a reach.

I don’t think it was a reach, I think it was entirely dishonest bait. I don’t think it was even slightly honest.

My post about historical misinformation had just reached a group of TERFs who were leaving mocking responses on it, and so this anon coming at the exact same time is hardly a coincidence. A TERF sent that ask to me, I assume to try to make one of these things happen:

I start to think trans people are hysterical and ungrateful and anti-feminist, so I stop defending trans equality and justice;

I desperately deny being a feminist or talking about women, so they can point to me as proof that people who support trans rights don’t care about women and/or that women are cowed into submission to the Trans Cult™;

My followers turn on me for TERF Accusations

All of those presume a really narrow view of how people think about trans rights, queer rights, and feminism. I could have just ignored it (EVERY time one of my posts about historical misinformation reaches TERF tumblr I get a handful of anon asks ranging from “bait” to “telling me I’m just like Hitler” (genuinely, I got that once)), and I could have just deleted this, but there IS a really important point to be made that on tumblr there seems to be this view that feminism is suspect because only TERFs care about it. And it seemed like a good venue as any to put a little bit more trans-affirming feminist contemplation out in the world.

But also like lmao yeah it’s hardly like any of us can escape gender in our lives, so thinking about it is Productive for everyone.