Welcome to Trans Tuesday! This week’s thread is a first (and probably only) of its kind, as we’re talking EXPANSION and THE FUTURE OF TRANS TUESDAYS – a WEBSITE AND PODCAST! (but fear not, they’re staying as threads too)
I’ve talked about where my Trans Tuesday threads came from before, but briefly they all stemmed from me realizing how much privilege I was giving up in transitioning from a white (seemingly) cis man to a white trans woman.
But I was also very much aware of how much privilege I still had. Which is not to say femme white trans ladies have a lot of privilege in our society, but we certainly have more than every trans woman of color.
On top of that, so many trans people lose spouses, family, friends, homes, and jobs when we come out, and I basically lost none of that. So I remain remarkably more privileged than most trans women, and I recognize that and I wanted to USE it to help people.
I’m a writer, it’s what I do. So I had the thought that I would chronicle my transition, and talk about things cis people might never realize about society, and do what I could to take as much pressure off of other trans people as I could.
I had no idea how long I’d be writing them, I thought I’d just talk until I ran out of things to talk about. But that never happened, because so many more things keep getting added to the list. Things I myself never even realized (and couldn’t have) until well into my transition.
So here we are, two and a half years after they started, and there’ve been over one hundred installments (this is 119!) and my mega 24-thread deep dive into the intentional trans allegories of the Matrix movies will be released as a book in the summer of 2023.
And it’s that book that actually got me thinking about my Trans Tuesdays as a whole. I was a little hesitant to turn the Matrix threads into a book at first, even though many people who’ve read them have asked for exactly that.
But a very small percentage of the population is on social media, and a book could reach an entirely new audience of people. And so many people have told me how those Matrix threads, and these threads in general, have helped them.
And that’s the whole reason I started these. I just want to help people. To be as much of a resource as I can. And that led me to the realization that these threads could reach a lot more people if they were also in another medium.
I also realized that while I link to relevant past threads where applicable, they’re otherwise not easy to locate on social media. I’ve had people ask if I had them available in another format, so they could send them to friends and family who aren’t on social media.
So what this has morphed to is where I want to take these threads going forward. First and foremost, I want you to know these social media versions aren’t going anywhere. I’ll keep doing them here for as long as I’m writing them and there’s a “here” to post them to.
But you can now also find them, ALL OF THEM, at tillystranstuesdays.com. They’re categorized and alphabetized, and link to the Twitter and Facebook versions of each. Additionally I’ve turned every single one of them into a Google doc.
You can read each thread in whole right in that doc, and easily share the links to them with anyone you want. I’ve broken them down into four categories, though there’s some overlap so you will find some topics listed in multiple categories:
THE TRANS 101 PACK – everything you need to know about the basics of being trans. Ideal for eggs, for people wondering if they’re trans, for people who have literally no idea what being transgender actually means, or who want to brush up on the big stuff.
THE TRANS LIFE PACK – all the threads about what it’s like to exist as a trans person in this world. These are of course from my personal experience as a (white) trans woman, but they apply to most trans people in varying ways.
THE CIS ALLYSHIP PACK – the info every cis person needs to understand what it means to be a true ally, HOW to be a true ally, and why YOUR allyship is absolutely VITAL for trans people to live, thrive, and gain any sort of equality in this world.
THE TRANS MEDIA PACK – this includes my Matrix, Barbie, Silo, and Real Genius trans allegory threads, talk about representation (good and bad), and everything related to the intersection of media and trans people.
And now each Trans Tuesday will be available as a podcast as well, which you can find on all your favorite podcast services and can download directly from the show’s website.
New episodes will go up on Tuesdays, and be ON THE SAME TOPIC AS THAT WEEK’S SOCIAL MEDIA THREAD. They will contain the same information and thoughts I present in the text threads, but will have added discussion.
I’ll be hosting it with my wife, who will be our token cis representation (turnabout! oh!), and my hope is to have a different trans guest on every few episodes to discuss the topic with us, and to give everyone listening a window into the width and breadth of trans existence.
We’re everywhere, we’re all kinds of different people, we do all kinds of different jobs, have all kinds of different personalities – just like cis people. And I think helping both cis people and other trans people see that there’s a million different ways to be trans can only be beneficial.
But to have a text thread and a podcast version ready at the same time means I’ve had to change the process a little. I can no longer write them on Sunday and release them on Tuesday. Podcasts take time to schedule and record and edit, after all.
As such I imagine there will be some growing pains as I figure the new schedule out, so please be patient if things get a little (extra) weird for a bit while I settle into the new routine of bringing these Trans Tuesdays to you.
There will continue to be entirely new topics, and revisions of previous ones, and I’m sure some will be on topics I haven’t even realized are a thing I should talk about yet.
I don’t speak for all trans people. All I can give you is my own perspective. But with the podcast, now I can also give other trans people a platform to talk about these same issues, to share their thoughts on what being trans means to them.
I want to celebrate us, to share the beauty and complexity of our existence with the world. And whether you read on social media, read them from the website, or listen to the podcast (or all three!), thank you for joining me on this journey.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.