Prism & Pen

Does Gender Dysphoria Fully Go Away After Transition? Why Even After Hormones, Surgeries, and Social Changes, Dysphoria Can Return in New Forms

Many #transgender people think that dysphoria will fully go away after certain steps in their transition. Unfortunately, it often doesn’t happen. After achieving one goal, pretty soon comes another, and then another. This circle may never end.
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#LGBTQ #GenderDysphoria

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Attacks Riley Gaines, Defends Trans People Defending vulnerable people from those who attack them

Gaines posted a photo on Twitter of AOC with Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani, captioned with, “We are being destroyed from within”. AOC fired back: “Maybe if you channelled all this anger into swimming faster you wouldn’t have come in fifth”.
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#LGBTQ #USPolitics #TransRights

I Didn’t Choose To Be Transgender, I Just Got Lucky No one CHOOSES to be transgender. I take issue with the lucky part.

“I didn’t choose to be transgender, I just got lucky.” I see that phrase posted a lot in trans forums and, honestly, it needs to stop. Half of it is correct. No one CHOOSES to be #transgender. But that lucky part is where I take issue.
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#LGBTQ #Life #Identity

What Will Trans Folks and Pro-Trans Allies Get Blamed For Next? Food stamps too? My heart aches as my fury mounts.

Here in the U.S., the Right has blamed trans folks for mass shootings they had nothing to do with. They’ve accused trans people of being terrorists and compared the trans community to the Taliban and ISIS.
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#LGTQ #USPolitics #Transgender #TransRights

Part Two: A Transgender Woman Converts a House, Then a Neighbor Gemma finds an unexpected confidant

‘…Gemma? It’s Mum, I’m sorry, but I have some bad news I need to share.’
‘Mum, what is it?’
‘It’s cancer, well a kind of cancer… ’
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#LGBTQ #Fiction #QueerFiction #Transgender #Family

My Trans Road Trip as Sisters: Part One I had thirty years to plan and was still rushing

I’ve waited over thirty years for this trip, you’d think I would have actually prepared for it.
A trans woman on her first few days away from home living authentically with her sister.
Of course, mentally, how do you prepare?
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#LGBTQ #Transgender #Sisters #Travel

The Tragic Laurel Tree: Daphne A retelling of the Greek myth of Daphne, and Apollo’s unrequited love for her

As the lover and closest advisor to Artemis, Daphne's skill in the hunt was coveted, an incomparable prowess she wielded with a bow.
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#LGBTQ #Fiction #Myth #GreekMythology #Retelling #wlw

Myth that Echoed Underground Queer Life Made Me a Woman I found my escape in Persephone.

I grew up in a gritty northern town in England where being different was not a option one could choose easily. Everything there was firmly rooted in the binary. Girls liked dancing, boys liked rugby.
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#LGBTQ #Mythology #Queer #Memoir

KPop Demon Hunters — THE Queer Movie Of 2025 As per usual with art, “If you know, you know”, if not? You can just pretend otherwise.

There’s a rule that suggests your favourite movie is the one you’ve watched the most. If that is the case, KPop Demon Hunters is ascending up my all time list at breakneck speed.
I’d love to say my youngest daughter is responsible, but I can’t.
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#LGBTQ #QueerFilm #KPopDemonHunters

Summer’s Story — a love song for Summer from Autumn A Kyrielle inspired by Shakespeare’s Sonnet 98

In your proud lap I lay my head
While butterflies flit ‘round our bed
And all around are petals spread.
O Summer’s story tell!

The leaves now turn to red and gold
And we curl up against the cold...
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#LGBTQ #Poetry #QueerPoetry #LoveStory

Dealing With Honest Mistakes & Deliberate Disrespect of Your Trans Loved One My Cis Wife’s Support & Advice Guide

Deliberate misgendering is obvious; it’s easy to tell who is just trying to be hateful. In the same way, it’s easy to tell if it was accidental. Mistakes happen, and most people realise that; it’s how you handle them that is the most important thing.
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#LGBTQ #Transgender

Falling in Love & Apart: What Chronic Illness Taught Me About Queer Love Loving someone while your body betrays you changes everything.

Being dumped sucks even when the relationship is going nowhere for either of you. To be dumped because you are extremely sick and can’t go out and about because there is a global pandemic? Well, that sucks even more.
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#LGBTQ #QueerLove #BreakingUp #Relationships #Illness

Why Don’t Trans People Trust Labour? Trusting our leaders with trans rights

A poll that came out recently from YouGov found that a whopping 91% of trans, non-binary, and intersex people in Britain do not trust Labour on trans rights.
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#LGBTQ #Transgender #Labour #UKPolitics

Part One: A Transgender Woman Becomes Herself An unlikely start, becoming Gemma, and falling in and out of love

‘You’re wasting your time, that’ll never grow… not there.’
Gemma, sweating from her exertions looked up. ‘Sorry?’
‘Not enough sun,’ a unambiguous statement from over the fence.
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#LGBTQ #Fiction #QueerFiction #Transgender

Marrying a Woman Does Not Make a Man Straight Six profiles of notable queer men of history in mixed-orientation marriages

There are myriad reasons why men marry women and women marry men. And, more often than one might assume, those reasons have little or nothing to do with either partner’s actual sexual orientation.
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#LGBTQ #Marriage #Orientation #Relationships

Traveling While Lesbian, With a Layover in the Closet How global travel exposes the harsh realities of LGBTQ+ criminalization

I should have known better. I had already experienced the same fear and anxiety the year before on a trip to Tanzania. After this second faux pas, I won't let this happen again.
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#LGBTQ #Travel #QueerTravel #TravelingWhileQueer

The True Story of a P-Town Lesbian Artist Who Died in an Asylum How Jane Anderson unearthed her great-aunt’s hidden art and gave Provincetown back a piece of its queer history

Edith Lake Wilkinson was born in 1868 in Wheeling, West Virginia. She attended college at a time when higher education for women was rare, then studied at the Art Students League in New York under teachers like Robert Henri and William Merritt Chase.
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#LGBTQ #Lesbian #Artists

A Life-Long Queer Friendship That Was More Than Worth the Bad Coffee Two decades of shared mornings and unspoken recognition

“Huh?” I said stupidly, trying not to say anything worse. In 1979, in Virginia or most anywhere, you didn’t go around being honest about how captivating you found another man to be.
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#LGBTQ #Gay #Memoir #Friendship

Inappropriate Questions & Comments About Trans People My Cis Wife’s Support & Advice Guide

Not everyone who asks you these questions is being deliberately hurtful. You will probably be able to spot the difference between these three groups quite easily. If you can’t, you’ll definitely learn.
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#LGBTQ #Transgender #AskingQuestions #CisAllies

A 224-Year Wait to See a Gender Clinic? It Doesn’t Have to Be Like This No, 224 years is not a typo

At the gender clinic in Glasgow, whose waiting list I’ve been on since 2021, the average time to get a first appointment currently sits at 224 years.
224 years might sound made up, but it’s not.
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#LGBTQ #GenderClinics #HealthCare

Understanding the Heartfelt Journey of My Transgender Sister When all that’s left is love — see you at the crossroads

She was never afraid of death, thought of it as another dimension to be discovered after life.
In my head, I could hear her saying, “Girl, I’ve crossed over to the light, & I’m telling you, honey, it is absolutely fabulous.”
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#LGBTQ #Transgender #Family #Grief #Loss #Death

No, You Don’t Get to Tell Us to Leave Our Pride Flags at Home If your solidarity depends on someone else’s silence, it was never solidarity at all.

When the call went out for solidarity, it should have been simple: a protest to defend women’s rights, a moment to stand together as the government edges closer to abandoning the Istanbul Convention. But within hours, the message fractured.
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#LGBTQ #Allies #Solidarity

My Emotional Support Human Turned Wife: Queer Love After 40 How falling for my best friend at 40 shattered every rule I thought I had to follow.

Somewhere between body doubling through chaos, a million phone calls, and laughing until our faces hurt, I fell in love with my best friend. I hadn’t even seen it coming.
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#LGBTQ #QueerLove #WLW #Frienship #Love #Queer

A French Film’s Sobering Take on Class, War, and Queer Desire ‘Enzo’: That brief, real summer that collided with me

Some adolescent encounters aren’t gentle, breezy romances. They are head-on collisions. You get knocked head over heels, bloodied and bruised, and in that daze, you catch a fleeting glimpse of another world.
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#LGBTQ #QueerFilm #FrenchFilm #Enzo

The Hot Man: This Extraordinary Gay Thing Happened A tale of a magical spell never to be denied.

“It’s so nice to be out and see a table of such hot men! You guys have a wonderful evening!”
Then he said in a sonorous perfectly calm voice, “YOU’RE the one who is hot!”
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#LGBTQ #Gay #Connection #Aging

The Projectionist’s Playbook: The Modern Political War on Trans People An analysis of the “groomer” panic, the psychology of scapegoating, and the staggering hypocrisy of those leading the charge.

Have you ever noticed that the people who shout the loudest about a specific "sin" are often the ones most guilty of it? This is a classic psychological defense mechanism called projection.
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#LGBTQ #Transgender #CultureWar #Psychology

J.K. Rowling: When Transphobia Becomes Taboo How to destroy a legacy

I think everyone who is aware of the Harry Potter franchise and Joanne Rowling is aware of her views on trans people, to at least some extent.
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#LGBTQ #Transphobia #JKRowling #HP

Transgender Women and the Patriarchy: Sadly, the March Goes On I don’t intend to march in line to make others happy.

As we all come to grips with the ugly political environment here in the U.S. and abroad for the #LGBTQ community, I can’t help but feel that the #Patriarchy is marching again.
This time with a new brass band.
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#USPolitics #Transgender

Watch This Gay Show: Trump Will Hate You for It “Boots” is the perfect counterpoint to a hate-raddled administration vastly disconnected from normal human values.

Something of a sleeper hit, Boots is one of the most popular TV series in the world right now, and the Trump Administration hates it.
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#LGBTQ #QueerTV #USPolitics #NetflixBoots

Creative Writing: A Retelling of the Greek Myth of Atalanta The legendary life of Atalanta of Arcadia, a woman who yearned for independence, power, and freedom from men that had underestimated her.

The moment the child left her mother’s womb, the Fates set to work, crafting a future for the one steeped in prophecy. The youngest of the trio, Clotho, nimbly spun the thread; her fingers wove life into the greatest warrior that would grace mankind.
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#LGBTQ #WLW #GreekMyth