Pronouns: Ze, he, or they
Identifies as: Genderqueer along the transmasculine spectrum
Hobbies: "I'm a photography nut who lives on my bicycle. When I'm not protesting police brutality, I'm making extravagant vegetarian brunches."
Life's work:
"I've spent several years now founding the Transgender Oral History Project, organizing trans and gender variant support social groups, and facilitating educational workshops about issues impacting the trans community. I see those project as creating trans-friendly spaces online and in real life while working to welcome and guide questioning or emerging trans folks into a supportive community."
Whom do you admire most?
"I admire community leaders, people who are generous with their time and energy, people who are willing to stand up for what is right even when it requires sacrifice, those who have dedicated their lives to healing themselves and others from trauma, and, of course, I admire single parents."
What is the best thing about being trans/gender-variant?
"There are so many! Being gender-variant affords me the opportunity to be sexy and rebellious everyday by just being who I am and finding peace with it. I get to play--on the El, in my workplace, in my neighborhood--with how I am perceived and to traverse social spaces that are usually mutually exclusive. Above all, I feel lucky to be a part of such a fierce, supportive community full of people I look up to for their strength and compassion."
How do you explain the way you feel about gender to others?
"Have you ever felt like you were not 'man' or 'women' enough? Gender comes with tons of rules and regulation, with all too much shame and policing. As a result, most of us feel gendered expectations infringing on who we are or who we wish we could be. I feel it more acutely than most people, and so I have chosen to change my social reality to find a space where I can live more comfortably."
What do you think are the most important issues facing the trans/ gender-variant community?
"I'm most drawn to working on issues that impact queer people and also other marginalized communities--increasing access to affordable healthcare, stopping police sexual assault, abolishing prisons, and preventing HIV. I get frustrated that mainstream LGBT activism doesn't centralize economic and racial justice in our vision for social transformation. I've tried to do so by teaching workshops with the Prison Industrial Complex Teaching Collective, working to build leadership in queer communities of color, and trying to integrate transformative justice into my own community spaces."
To nominate a person for T in the life, email: Kate Sosin sosin@windycitytimes.com
