things you should read (+ new old zine!)

i'm coming out as a guy with good taste

Yesterday my partner told me that sharks are older than the North Star. By like, hundreds of millions of years. A few years ago this might have sent me and my BLAHAJ into an existential spiral. But right now I’m listening to Lorde and thinking about how limited our time on this planet is and how things are so much bigger than myself. That doesn’t really scare me anymore.

Also, while writing this, I saw that it’s national coming out day. Thinking about how I’ve come out to my mom at least 3 times. Not always in the smoothest fashion. I look so fucking undefinable now that I just… can’t remember the last time I came out to someone? Not since coming out in the hotel room hours before my dad’s burial— oops. What’s a trans to do! The world makes no sense. So why should I?

Some trans and/or literary links for you on this humid Wednesday morning¹:

• Read “A Hole in the Limits of the World” by Ismail Ibrahim in n+1

• Challenge anti-trans rhetoric and reporting with the Trans Data Library:

  • from the site: The Trans Data Library’s team of trans journalists, led by Evan Urquhart, collects carefully sourced, factual information about the anti-trans political effort in real time, to help people understand who is shaping the conversation on trans issues and why. The Library is a project of Assigned Media, and serves the larger goal of providing the public with better sources of information around trans issues.

• Read “Framing Keffals as the Face of Trans Resistance Has Allowed Her Racism To Stay Unchallenged” by Alyssa Shotwell, about a single example of a wider problem

  • Please take care, this article documents disgusting behavior including racism, transphobia, ableism…

• Check out Being Ace: An Anthology of Queer, Trans, Femme, and Disabled Stories of Asexual Love and Connection edited by Madeline Dyer. I haven’t gotten my hands on it yet, but it was published yesterday!

• Pre-order It’s Not Over Once You Figure It Out by

  Isaac Pickell
  (and also check out his substack!)

• Look into the Disabled & Deaf Trans People's Survey from The Disability Project

• Apply for the Light Bill Incubator Microgrant for Black and/or Indigenous writers by 10/31

  • this opportunity awards $500, a slot in Sundress’s reading series, and more for writers with a chapbook in progress

• Send your visual manuscript to fifth wheel press by 10/31

• Send your queer writing to Foglifter by 11/1

• Send your writing or art to Transphoria: A Trans and Non-binary Comic Anthology by 11/22

• Send your chapbook to Abode Press by 11/30

• Send your queer fashion writing to just femme & dandy by 12/1. I especially wanna read pitches from trans people of color for the fat + furious column.

• Send your writing to ANMLY by 2/1

  • my baby, “it’s a good day to be trans!: a folio on trans joy,” lives in the last issue

Some personal updates:

• I dug up a zine I made earlier this year and finally scanned it last night. Check out LORCA THE CAT here for all the essential lore-ca²

• I’m reading at BookWoman in Austin tomorrow!! I had a virtual interview with Cindy Huyser earlier this week, which you can read here. Register for the in-store & virtual reading here.

• We’re coming up on the end of Latine Heritage Month— I wrote about why I hate being called hispanic at the start of it

• I have a lil poem about deer and the Hill Country and my mortality in VIBE’s upcoming Anthropoetics, which you can pre-order here.

• I debated whining about this here, but! I have developed carpal tunnel! I just need to vent man. My only things I do for work and fun is read, write, type, fold pieces of paper… sigh. Send me all the healing energy pls.

I didn’t intend anyone to see this zine but it’s actually very wholesome imo!

I mean, look how cute that cover is. Almost as cute as the girl herself.

<3

Here we are at our old apartment!

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You may have noticed that I recently added a paid option for this newsletter. Subscriptions help me continue doing the freelance/poet thing while also being trans and disabled. That said, trans poetica will always always remain free. I do this because I love writing and connecting with other folks. “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.” Thanks for reading this far down!

1. pretend it’s humid wherever you are, ok?

2. I am way too proud of this tagline