Luke A.B.'s Blogging

An update to the Transmasculine Suicide Remembrance blog-  Data Reality of the community in 2022 (content warning: discussion of suicide, transphobia) Almost a year ago, I published the first edition of my blog in remembrance of the transmasculine people that we have unfortunately lost to suicide . It's a vigil that I keep now by updating the blog with the names of people who have passed since I last updated it- though it is a strange thing to do, it's something very close to my heart as a trans man who has survived suicidality myself.  The transmasculine community is comprised of trans men and nonbinary people who self-define their genders (and transitions if applicable) as masculine. This blog focuses on them as neither group really enjoys much visibility in society. As such, our deaths (and especially our suicides) are very important to be aware of so that we can help to prevent more of them from happening in the community.  As a result of trawling the records of ...

  UK’s First Trans MP: a Conundrum for the Conservative Party? Earlier this year, Jamie Wallis MP came out as transgender. Following a car crash in late November 2021, he described his reaction to the incident as being linked to his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which he developed as a result of blackmail and rape. Wallis is an MP for the Conservative Party, having unseated Labour’s 30-year hold on the Bridgend constituency. This, combined with his transness, makes for a rather unusual situation for the Conservative Party at large, having spent the last twelve years introducing policies that have had a negative impact on the transgender community in the United Kingdom.  Wallis, in an interview with Sky News said that he wishes to transition as ‘quick as possible’ but also mentions that the process will be ‘challenging and difficult’ with ‘lots of hurdles’. Additionally, he mentioned that  ‘it's not going to be done overnight, it's going to take many, many years’...

  A Short History of Packing, Penises and Pieces of Affirmation for trans men:   Trans men (and other transmasculine individuals) have long existed on this planet. But what isn’t often recorded is our history, particularly, our affirmation seeking history in the form of dysphoria relief. I am in fact, referring to packing- the practice of trans men, transmasculine people, female-to-male spectrum people and many nonbinary people giving ourselves penises.  Packers come in many shapes and sizes (just like their cis counterparts) and most trans people’s first packers are homemade, makeshift solutions to the empty space where a penis should be. Those with the cash can opt for soft body-safe silicone packers made by dedicated shops online, which offer an array of skin tones to match the user’s body. This is a hallmark of 21st Century trans society, the 18th, 19th and 20th Century trans men generally stuck to the homemade type.  Anders Magnus Åhrman (1777-?) was a trans man...

  Friends in Unlikely Places: A history of Trans Allyship: (Trans Men Edition) It is an unfortunate assumption that throughout most of trans history, that trans people have been utterly alone in the universe, save for the lucky few who were able to find other trans people at the time they were alive. But it’s completely false that absolutely no cis people were supportive towards historical trans people in their time. Historical trans people and their cis contemporaries are a lot more interconnected than is currently thought and the under-discussed aspects of trans allyship are absolutely present in the records that we have.  The focus here will be on trans people who intended to go stealth, but had one or two people who were aware of their trans status and were supportive of their transness. Other focuses will be on historical trans figures who drew support while people knew of their status. As many names of these allies will be mentioned as possible, though it is not possible...

  The Welsh Church 2- Electric Boogaloo (Hunting the oldest queer terms in Welsh) (or, 453 years is too long to keep calling us this) (Consider supporting me on my ko-fi here or my etsy here if you are able)  (CW: homophobic slurs in Welsh and English)  In my last essay about the homophobia and transphobia embedded in the Welsh Church (or Church in Wales) I wrote about the homophobic lines in Leviticus 18:22 and how there has been no edition of the Welsh Bible that does not have the homophobic implications of those lines. It got me thinking, what about the other, more dubious lines in the Bible that contain homophobia or even transphobia? And did this get extended into Welsh?  I began by gathering together all of the lines in the Bible known to be homophobic or justify homophobia. They are: Leviticus (Lefiticus) 18:22, Leviticus (Lefiticus) 20:13, 1 Corinthians (Corinthiaid) 6:9-10, 1 Kings (Brenhinoedd) 14:24, 1 Kings (Brenhinoedd) 15:12. In the King James Bible (...

  Essay on TERFism: The Forgotten (almost) Terrorism  (Consider supporting me on my ko-fi here or my etsy here ) Cw: Nazis, Fascism, TERFS, Rape, Forced Pregnancy TERFS (or trans exclusionary radical feminists) are terrorist-like. They are, however, state sanctioned, which is a big problem for those of us who are trans and living in countries which promote TERFism as a convenient way to ‘support the feminists’ while beating down trans people.   How are these TERFS terrorist-like? The answer to that question lies in what terrorism is and how right-wing white terrorism in particular is overlooked.  Terrorism, broadly speaking, is any act, movement or ideology that seeks to achieve its goals through the use of violence and fear. But the narrow definition is increasingly hard to pin down. In Root Causes of Terrorism (2004) terrorism is defined as “a set of methods or strategies of combat rather than an identifiable ideology or movement, and that terrorism involves ...

  Taking a Critical Eye to Transphobic Headlines- Why anti-trans language is front and center: Originally written 16th June 2021 Many of us (trans people in the UK) are fed up with headline after headline announcing hatred for trans people, with a seemingly simultaneous endless love for transphobes. I for one, check the news frequently enough to notice things that perhaps those who haven’t been glued to each headline won't do– that being a very interesting trend of journalism standard pattern breaking that betrays the BBC's innermost policy on trans news articles. The BBC is a very interesting media outlet to look at- especially because it is supposed to have an unbiased look upon the world. Realistically, we all know that completely unbiased reporting is nigh on impossible for any person- it’s part of the human experience that we tend to slip benign and malignant views into our work- be it written, visual or otherwise intended for wide audiences. Now, I’m no prescriptivist. I...