Transcript: Live Chat with Shannon Thrace

Research on restrictions led to a culture of lying

My greatest thanks to Shannon Thrace, author of 18 Months, for joining me on a live thread earlier in the week. We had some technical difficulties and so it wasn’t quite as smooth or easy to follow as we’d hoped, although we managed to have a really interesting exchange with others joining in. And I learned a lot.

One of the most fascinating things she wrote about was how restrictions on who could transition made a lot of AGPs lie to cover up their desire for medical interventions—which many want, and some are definitely quite happy with. And that’s made the subject all the more taboo, all the harder to study and understand and sympathize with. When we pretend that gender and sex and sexuality don’t have tremendous overlap, we create an environment that supports divorcing from reality.

Shannon graciously organized the conversation on her Substack, so please head there if you’d like to read more. I hope to continue talking to trans widows and heterodox trans people, and keep it all complicated.