trans identity

There’s a term in the transgender community called “eggmode”; parlance for transgender or nonbinary people who haven’t figured it out yet. A while back on social media, #eggmode trended with tales of behaviors that in retrospect seem like giant neon signs. They include th…

Steve Rogers is a trans man. I don’t say this as an argument, I say this as a truth. Steve Rogers is trans. Rebirth is fundamental to who Captain America is. Before his rebirth, he was scrawny Steve Rogers, who fought in the streets of Brooklyn. Then he became Captain America, the soldier tha…

Eth's Skin is a fantasy quest adventure by Sfé R. Monster, published online since 2014, about a genderqueer fisherperson named Eth, their mermaid best friend, and the troubles that begin when Eth encounters a long-lost mythical being.

My earliest encounters with transgender characters came in Vertigo comics in the mid-90’s, especially Wanda in Sandman and Coagula in Doom Patrol. Wanda dresses a bit like a drag queen (and dies a tragic death), and Coagula is a sex worker, but they both felt like real people, which is not ho…

Airboy is a four-issue miniseries written by James Robinson and illustrated by Greg Hinkle, and published by Image Comics. Its premise is that Robinson and Hinkle, portrayed as fictionalized versions of themselves, are tapped to revamp an obscure Golden Age character. Robinson suffers writer's …

In the wake of Leelah Alcorn’s suicide in December 2014, people have been formulating ideas for how to fulfill her final wishes to “fix society”; to have her death “mean something” and to have it “counted in the number of transgender people who commit suicid…

In my online discussions of transgender representation in media, I’ve mentioned that I expect a degree of transphobia is every medium I read, watch or listen to. That’s simply how pervasive the problem is -- and it may take the form of a joke, an off-the-cuff remark, or a non-essential…

The X-Men did not have an openly LGBT team-member for almost their first forty years of publication. This was primarily an egregious act of self-censorship on Marvel's part, but it may actually have helped strengthen mutants as a queer metaphor. Where LGBT people couldn't be part of the X-…