Pronouns
Masculine
Identifies as
Trans man
Neighborhood
Lakeview
Life's work:
"In a broad sense, it would be trans activism/ education. For now what that looks like is that I've been talking to a couple of colleges around the city, different classes giving them presentations that I made called 'Transcending Anatomy. It's basically a Trans 101 for people that don't know anything about it. My goal is to eventually be able to travel around with it and go to different states and different schools and expand that beyond schools."
Do you consider yourself an activist?
"It's interesting because the trans education, I consider that activism. For some people, they find it effective to protest or have rallies. For me, the route that I wanted to take was of teaching them before I get angry at them for not understanding, or not angry but at least give them a chance to learn about what is this whole thing about being trans and what are the words that you should use."
What is the best thing about being trans/gender-variant?
"It's that I'm unique in some way, I guess. I can never go back to being just a cisgender person… not that I'd want to, but I think it's empowering honestly that I've explored my gender. Being gender-variant makes life amusing. I feel like it would be a lot more different if I were more visibly queer. I still kind of like that aspect of nobody knowing, but I know, and it just makes life more interesting."
How do you explain the way you feel about gender to others?
"I explain to them that it's not about what's in your pants. It's very much a personal thing. I'm not one of those people who think it's all socially constructed. I think it's a lot of different things and it's hard to say exactly where it comes from. I don't like when people say 'trans people are born in the wrong body.' I know some people feel that way, but I think that's really a negative way to put it. I think I was born trans for a reason. I don't know what that reason is exactly. It's a very spiritual matter. I guess you could say the sex I was born didn't match my true gender."
What do you think are the most important issues facing the trans/ gender-variant community?
"First, it would be healthcare, just the fact that so many medical professionals have no clue how to treat trans people… or what language to use, or that whole binary stuff with the health system. It just makes it really stressful even just to go to the doctor and have something simple."
To nominate a person for T in the life, email: Kate Sosin sosin@windycitytimes.com .