Hi. Please read this article about how queer Chicanx children’s book author, Maya Gonzalez, had her work stolen twice.
And consider her call to action to pressure the publishers and spread awareness about the plagiarism by sharing the article. Reblog this, or just share the article itself if you don’t want my example email. See if the plagiarized books are at your local library and stick Gonzalez’s provided bookmark in the copies, and send the publishers a Strongly Worded Email. Recommend copies of Maya Gonzalez’ books to your library too!
I am sending the following email to one of the publishers, New Harbinger (and another to Jessica Kingsley Publishing with the name of Storck’s book switched out for Pessin-Whedbee’s):
[ID: A screenshot of an email. The recipient is “customerservice@newharbinger.com”.
The subject line says Plagiarism Will Not Be Tolerated.
The body of the email says “Hello,
Continuing to distribute Kelly Storck’s book “The Gender Identity Workbook for Kids: A Guide To Exploring Who You Are” while you are aware that this book heavily plagiarizes from the work of activist Maya Gonzalez is unethical as well as unprofessional. Any reputable company would discontinue profiting from this work, remove it from their website, and apologize to the rightful author for distributing their work without credit or pay. Profiting off of someone’s intellectual property without their knowledge and consent goes against the basic values of this industry, and continuing to perpetuate this injustice is unacceptable.
I ask that you recognize that this action on your part is wrong by ceasing to promote this harmful devaluing of an author’s work as soon as possible. Please permanently remove this book from your store.” End ID.]
Feel free to copy my email and send it to customerservice@newharbinger.com. and a similar one to hello.usa@jkp.com about “Who are you? The Kid’s Guide to Gender” by Brook Pessin-Whedbee.
Will the publishers respond and stop distributing the books? Probably not. They haven’t so far. But maybe they haven’t been pressured enough yet. Let’s change that.
tl;dr: The following books: “The Gender Identity Workbook for Kids: A Guide To Exploring Who You Are” by Kelly Storck, and “Who are you? The Kid’s Guide to Gender“ by Brook Pessin-Whedbee, are plagiarized from queer Chicanx author Maya Gonzalez, so two cishet white women are taking credit for her work. Pressure the publishers to stop distributing these books. And if the books are at your local library, print the bookmark provided by Gonzalez and stick it in their copies.
@thebibliosphere you have a big audience that likes books! Give this a boost?
Well this is just all kinds of disgusting. Welp, time to send some emails.
Ok but as a dysphoric trans man the whole ‘you need dysphoria to be trans’ actually baffles me because even tho I’ve always had severe dysphoria, it didn’t actually help me figure out my gender at all. I usually dismissed my dysphoria as ‘internalized misogyny’ or just not being feminine enough, which actually just caused me worse dysphoria.
You know what made me figure out that I’m trans though? Gender euphoria. The minute I got called a ‘sir’ is the moment that I realized, “shit this feels right.” And at that point I realized that I could no longer deny the fact that I’m not a woman and that I couldn’t keep living as one.
Here’s a hot take: maybebeingtransisn’tsomuch about how uncomfortable you can be in your DGAB, but rather how muchmorecomfortable you can be.
Trans woman chiming in to second this.
I was dysphoric since at least the onset of puberty, but it took me until age 36 to realize I was trans, and it wasn’t the dysphoria that made me realize it. I even knew that what I felt sounded exactly like what dysphoric trans people described. But I dismissed it as self-loathing, depression, unhappiness with my body type.
And just like OP, the dysphoria isn’t how I realized I was trans. That feeling of “this is right, this is what I want” is how I realized I was trans. The realization that wanting to be trans and being trans are the same thing. Only then did it become clear. Only then was I able to start transitioning. And only then did my dysphoria begin to break.
This is a tradition that started as part of Asexual Awareness Week back in 2014 that I’d like to see continue. Back in 2014 there were only a handful of canonical asexual characters, and none of them were in mainstream media. In the past four years we’ve seen that number grow, and characters enter more mainstream comics, books, and shows! By no means is asexual representation plentiful, but it is getting better. With that in mind this year I would like to continue to celebrate canonically asexual spectrum characters, as well as generating more content for asexual spectrum headcanons.
You’re welcome to respond to these prompts in any way you’d like, art, fic, edits, meta, etc. Feel free to interpret these prompts loosely and adapt this as you please. As in past years, the tag is #AAWFC
Sunday October 21st:
Post about canonically asexual spectrum characters, and/or what you would like to see in future asexual representation.
Monday October 22nd: For canonical or headcanoned asexual spectrum characters, what relationship do they have with their identity? Are they out and proud? How did they discover their identity?
Tuesday October 23rd: Post about characters that you headcanon as asexual.
Wednesday October 24th:
For canonical or headcanoned asexual spectrum characters, how does their identity affect their life and relationships?
Thursday October 25th: Post about characters that you headcanon as demisexual or grey-asexual.
Friday October 26th:
For canonical or headcanoned asexual spectrum characters, how do their other identities interact with their asexual spectrum identity? (i.e. romantic orientation, race, culture, gender, religion, etc.)
Saturday October 27th: Post about a romantic or queerplatonic/quasiplatonic relationship in fiction that you see as having one or more asexual spectrum partner(s).
Okay so I just got off the phone with them. I talked to a trans girl named Aurora & she was super helpful! She gave me a few doctors to talk to & encouraged me to seek therapy instead of just rushing to get my pills. She literally found a trans friendly therapist in my town & I would definitely recommend giving them a call!
Check out their website for monetary help here! People can apply for ID assistance in the form of microgrants, which I previously had no idea about! Also trans folks can train to be a hotline operator, how awesome is that??
fun fact nonbinary ppl with boobs, nonbinary ppl who like their boobs, and nonbinary ppl who want boobs are cool and valid and just as nonbinary as ppl w flat chests and deserve to have a good time all the time
EquusGirl's Tumblr 