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I quickly learned that college is a transformative process regardless of location. It’s all about finding yourself, discovering your hopes and aspirations and reaching the deeper areas of your mind. Some people come out of the experience with a degree, others with incredible stories, and others simply with a better understanding of their body’s tolerance for alcohol. But some, like me, left with a newfound understanding and sense of purpose; I matriculated as a timid, confused boy and departed as a woman standing in her truth.

Raquel Willis via Graduation to Womanhood: Navigating Trans Identity at a Southern College

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Becoming Us positions itself as being pro-transgender. It seems very much like the producers and the people who star in it feel like they’re being good allies and they’re doing a public service. Really, I’m afraid that it’s giving people a bad example of how to react when one of your loved ones come out. The moral of the first two episodes seems to be ‘trans people are difficult and they cause a lot of stress and drama in their cis loved one’s lives. So it’s okay if you don’t react very well, it’s okay if you’re not supportive right away and it’s okay if you make it all about you,’ which is not a message that I want to hear or have broadcast on national television.

ABC Family Brings the Real-Life “Transparent” with “Becoming Us” (And That’s Not a Great Thing)

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Remember that really important thing you were supposed to do? Oh, right, you didn’t, because you forgot. Don’t worry! You’re not alone! Come tell Gabby all about it in our FRIDAY OPEN THREAD.

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Names have a lot of magic in them. In folklore, the idea of knowing someone or something’s true name is a powerful one, and someone sharing it with you is them at their most vulnerable. Many Catholic parents, mine included, name their children after saints of people from the Bible. Our obsession with names doesn’t end there: next, a Catholic will go through the sacrament of Confirmation, becoming a full member of the church, at which point we chose another saint we want to emulate and we take their name. Names are bigger than the letters that make them up. They fit an entire personality inside them, an entire history, they fit an entire soul.

The journey to finding and deciding on my real name, Melinda Valdivia Rude, took about four years.

Mey is opening up about the journey to find a name that fit.

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In two hours we learned Jenner is indeed a trans woman, and he’s struggled with feeling this way for his entire life, he hopes his story will educate people and maybe even save some lives and Diane Sawyer probably should’ve done some more homework before doing an interview like this. We also learned we still have a long way to go before trans women are treated with full respect by the media.

Bruce Jenner Is Transgender: Let’s Talk About The Coming Out Interview

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Sometimes we love people who don’t share our same value systems or knowledge sets. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t love them, but it can mean we need to work hard to make sure we aren’t compromising our own values just to placate them.

Here’s how to deal when your girlfriend says offensive sh*t.

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Surely every queer generation has been through this — this looking at the world around us and marveling at how different it is than the one we expected as kids and even as twentysomethings. So this is our time.

What does it mean to be a queer adult? Who the f*ck are we? Let’s find out.

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Check out all the queer sh*t you missed on television this week, kiddos!

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What are the things you do to unwind, dear ‘straddlers? Do you take baths? Do you clean? I do that, too. Not sure if it counts. Do you shop? Do you eat? If so, salty or sweet? I can never decide. I wanna know how you check yourself before you wreck yourself. Come one, come all and tell me how you treat yo self!

This week’s Friday Open Thread is all about gettin’ zen with your bad self. Get in here!

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We share your concern about its potentially devastating effects on the lives of transgender as well as gay, lesbian, bisexual and queer youth… As part of our dedication to protecting America’s youth, this administration supports efforts to ban the use of conversion therapy for minors.

Yep. Barack Obama is taking a stand against conversion therapy.

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I’m hoping (perhaps a little foolishly) that, once the show moves past the cis-indulgent fascination with transition before-and-afters, NGOTB will actually break a little ground by portraying trans people in a state we seem to rarely see: together in community.

Mari watched Discovery Life’s docuseries about six trans women, New Girls on the Block, and now she’s gonna tell you all about it.

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There’s a whole bunch of trans women coming to the small screen this year.

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Ironically it was a group of transgender performers who are credited with starting the LGBT movement in 1969. Since then we have been a shadow within it. We have been on our own. Well, we have the talent, the ability, the spokespeople, the strength and the courage within our own ranks to make our own stand and stand we must or else the ‘tipping point’ that has been discussed so much could very well capsize us.

Mey asked the women of the 2015 Trans 100 how everyone can do more to support trans folks in their communities. Here’s what they had to say.

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For me, one of the most beautiful and empowering parts about choosing to live as an out trans woman is knowing that I’m helping to dismantle the deeply fucked up power structures that have plagued us since we first gained access to transition in the middle of the 20th century.

Mari’s latest essay talks visibility and her experiences as an out trans woman.